


Bamboo

by piratemistress



Series: Pearls [6]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
Genre: F/M, Opium
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-19
Updated: 2007-05-23
Packaged: 2018-04-11 23:47:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4457138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratemistress/pseuds/piratemistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the sixth tale, events of Jack’s past in Singapore return to haunt him in a (just-post-fictional-AWE) Port Royal. Through unions of stone and fire, wood and water, powder and spark, Jack must face the consequences of the past as he navigates the present.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Pearl inside of the bamboo, not beautiful, yet strong and eternal, you are born only in the best bamboo, in the fields of one who is honest, wise and virtuous; pearl of the young and thin, or old and tall bamboo, when our hands have the power to save or destroy, give us strength, and help us to do what is right.  
  
  
_ “Queenie,” Jack began as he passed the opium pipe - forgetting that Madam Chao Quin didn't smoke it, never did, more wisely than most of her comrades and countrymen, too, the men and women, fishermen, laborers, people of Singapore changed into half-living shells of their former selves thanks to the East India Trading Company. Then again, he mused, she _was_ a woman, a beautiful, smart, inky-haired woman, his favorite kind, in fact... or least, his favorite kind until _her_ , and he pulled that thought in with the smoke and held it so long he'd forgotten what he was about to say.  
  
“Yes, Jack?” Queenie answered, in a low, sultry purr that he knew was cultivated to elicit a male response that he thoroughly lacked the energy to produce. Her voice seemed to echo in his mind - that was new - and he exhaled as though to breathe her back out.  
  
Jack only shook his head, too quickly to hold things still, and so he closed his eyes and leaned back on the divan. He then felt a female hand on his stomach, and was surprised, because he hadn't come there for sexual entertainment - that would be foolish, as opium and sex didn't really mix, a fact which he'd learned a long time ago - or was currently learning. And then that struck him as odd, because his time with Queenie was long, long past. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten there. He opened his eyes and looked down to see Elizabeth, dressed in her boy-costume, seated on the floor beside the divan, looking at him expectantly over the blanket of her hair across his stomach and thighs, her hand toying with the buttons on his shirt. He met her pale hand with his, and studied the intriguing visual of their intertwined fingers.  
  
_That_ was not right, he suddenly thought. Elizabeth was never with him in Singapore - not to Madam Chao's. When he realized he was dreaming, it was sort of a relief, but it was a little disturbing, too, since the dream was quite vivid and he didn't seem to be able to shake himself out of it. He held out the pipe to the dream-Lizzie, just to see what she would do. She took it, and he watched as she placed the end on her lips and inhaled, the lit embers glowing.  
  
As he watched, a slew of dream-memories flooded into him as the smoke flooded into her. He had transformed her. She was his creation - a perfect pirate who took what she could and gave nothing back. He dreamed that he had brought her all over the world, acquiring new tastes in every port, trying new sensations, embarking on new adventures. He had fed her raw clams from his fingers in a dockside seafood house in Baltimore. He'd made her try escargot on the coast of France and peacock in the British isles and assorted exotic foods and drinks, liquors and wines, and she'd eagerly consumed them all, with a voracity that scared him a little.  
  
Now the opium. That scared him, too, because he'd seen what happened to people who developed too great a taste for _that_. Hell, he'd been one of them. The loyal addicts at Chao Quin's had gotten so accustomed to him that one day - between stupors - they'd dubbed him their chief.  
  
Chief of lost, forgotten souls. An honor he had not dreamt of.  
  
He reached out to take the pipe back from her, and just as had happened with all of the other new things she'd learned, he found it lost its appeal for him once he'd seen her do it. It was as though when she acquired a new taste, he was to lose it; she was taking him from himself, piece by piece. He was doing it to himself, in a way, giving her things constantly - a flower he spotted, polished stones smooth from stream beds, or shells from the shore, beads for jewelry she would try on and then leave aside somewhere. The more he gave her, taught her, showed her, the more he wanted her in his bed and the more he was convinced he'd never have her at all.  
  
Queenie's laughter, silvery, a bubbling spring, reached his ears, and he looked over to see Will there across the room, too, his hand on Queenie's robe-clad thigh as he struggled to stand up. His eyes were wide and glazed, and Jack laughed inwardly, knowing for certain this was a dream ten times over, if Will were here too and toppling against Queenie like that with a silly smile on his oft-serious face. And then in one of those transformations only possible in dreams, Will had suddenly switched places with Elizabeth, and it was Will's head lying on Jack's stomach, while he watched Elizabeth and Queenie fall, laughing, onto the cushions across the room. That was a little too much. He felt something stir in his trousers, wondering if Elizabeth would acquire a taste for _that_ , too, but when he looked down it was only the brush of Will's hand against his lap - accidentally, he was sure - as the boy tried to stand again, unsuccessfully, landing back on the floor with a dazed expression, seeing or not seeing the two women upon the cushions amid the smoke.  
  
The part where Jack rose from the divan and ambled out of the opium house was missing from the dream's strand of experiences... instead he simply found himself wandering the wide streets of Singapore, peering into the dark, remembering the rice paddies and Dutch ships but unable to see them. It struck him as odd, too, that a real memory asserted itself; his Portugese father was telling tales of the total destruction of Singapore when he was a young man - and how could that be? If Singapore was razed, gone, wiped off the map, then where were they - nowhere?  
  
Perhaps they were nowhere, the four of them. In the dream Will and Elizabeth couldn't return home because there was no home to return to; Port Royal had suffered a catastrophic earthquake and all but fallen into the sea, and so the two of them had sailed the world with Jack. Which wasn't possible, of course; Will would never have permitted his lady love to suck clams from the fingers of a pirate, and Port Royal couldn't have been destroyed in an earthquake _again_ , for Jack's mother had said something about that, too, years ago. Though if it were destroyed then how could they have lived there, Elizabeth and Will, their entire lives? And Jack got there, that was how it all started. It was all so very mixed up and confusing. Jack no longer knew if he was dreaming the past or the future or something else altogether.  
  
He found his way back to the ship. The _Pearl_ , of course. There was no other ship for Jack, in dream or reality. He climbed aboard and trailed a finger over the wheel, satisfied by its solidity. To his cabin, then, and a good drink of rum and sleep and when he went to dream-sleep then he might wake up and it would be over.  
  
A candle was burning in his cabin. He entered reverently, as one might an artist's studio, glancing about to see what work was in progress. When his eyes fell upon the bed he stopped short, a muscle jumping in his cheek as he took in the sight.  
  
She was there in his bed, his ivory virgin, golden-brown tresses pillowed about her head, the rest of her elegantly posed with the sheet cascading from the curves of her nude, draped like an unfinished sculpture. Even in the dream he rationalized the fantasy - Queenie was entertaining a Will not quite of himself, and she'd snuck out and found her way back to the ship while he wandered the dark, nonexistent city. It was what he wanted most, and he wondered if love was simply an addiction like opium, only the object changed from drug to woman.   
  
She was asleep, or feigning sleep, as he approached, completely still; a statue he'd molded that he longed to bring to life. He bent over to lift a lock of hair away from her face, but she didn't move, and he rubbed the strands between his fingers, soft as a paintbrush. Since the day they'd met - when he'd pulled her from the sea - he'd had the audacity to dream he might have a woman _like_ her, some day, but not her, never her. Yet here she was, in his bed, waiting for him, and even though he knew it wasn't real, he couldn't resist a kiss upon the lips he half expected to be made of marble.  
  
A mewling noise, a sound like plaster cracking but which was probably the gentle high pop of bones left idle in sleep, and she awoke, responding to his kiss warmly before he pulled away, looking down in disbelief. The sound - he thought again - might have been the earth itself opening up to swallow them both, as it opened to swallow Port Royal, quite unnerving because Jack had developed a fear of being swallowed, likely stemming from an appointment with a sea monster, gone south.  
  
And was the monster the Kraken or Elizabeth? She swallowed him, too, right there in his cabin, after a short while, and in his amazement he couldn't stand, so they fell back on the bed as he sculpted her with hands and teeth and lips, her limbs as soft and supple as wax.   
  
It was then, there, as he was poised to take her, ready to immerse himself completely in her, that he realized she had already taken everything. There was nothing left of him. He had nothing more to give. She had stolen all of him, all of him; consumed, absorbed, become.   
  
He awoke on the floor of the jail cell in Port Royal, his erection stretching the very seams of his breeches, and when he heard the scurrying of rats and drops of water seeping through the walls, he almost laughed at the vivid unreality of that dream as the images came back to him. The part about Elizabeth being naked in his cabin was outlandish fantasy - that wasn't how it had happened at all. His sleeping mind made her the seductress, when in fact she was only a young woman, still. A very fierce one, true, who had, of course, landed him in jail, awaiting execution. Again.  
  
As he turned onto his side, pillowing his head upon his elbow, and began to wonder who or what would save him this time - if anything or anyone - he also pondered how much of him was truly left to save.  
  
He drifted back to sleep, or at least he thought he had; the grate of the prison door seemed to become a crosshatch of bamboo. He was fading between the present and the past, and landed somewhere in between.  
  
  
“Jack.”  
  
He opened his eyes at the sound of her voice, and found himself staring up at Elizabeth through the grate. “Well.”  
  
“Morning.”  
  
“Is it?” He propped himself on his elbows, noticing that she glanced from side to side before bending lower to talk to him.   
  
“Get up, won't you? I've got to tell you a few things,” she whispered, and he struggled to his feet, noticing his head ached. He threaded his fingers through the grate and leaned his forehead on it, opened his eyes to glare at her.  
  
“Did you tell Bootstrap?”  
  
“Yes,” she said, “like you asked. I'll help him get in later, but that's all I can do. I talked to my father again, and he insists his hands are tied. Why won't you tell me what this plan of yours involves? Other than the 'delivery' I'm to give Bootstrap. Which was no easy task getting hold of, for your information.”  
  
He smiled without much warmth. “I'm sure it wasn't, but I had every faith in your abilities, m'dear, and it wouldn't be a secret escape plan if I told you, now would it?”  
  
There was a jingling noise and Elizabeth started, turning her head to the doorway of the corridor, and then breathed a sigh of relief as she saw it was only Prince, the dog who carried the keys in his mouth. “Here, boy,” she tried in vain, but he took off at the sight of her. Or perhaps it was at the sight of Jack.  
  
In any case, it wasn't as if she could just unlock Jack's cell and walk out with him. There were guards everywhere, and she was the governor's daughter, not an anonymous soldier. She turned back to Jack. “So... it's to be tonight, then?”  
  
“God willing. Though I'll take the other gent's help, too,” Jack said, regarding her in the dim morning light that poured in through the small window in the cell. “Where do they think you are?”  
  
“The dressmaker's. Last minute preparations for tomorrow,” she whispered. “It's a lot easier to slip away in the daytime.”  
  
Tomorrow morning. Her wedding... to be followed by his hanging, the next day. Really awful timing, actually, but that was a frequent pattern in Jack's life.  
  
“You'll be all snug in your bed, then, tonight.”   
  
A silence between them at the image; a memory. “Yes,” she said. “Don't suppose I'll be sleeping until I hear there's been a miraculous escape from the fort; notorious pirate gone from his cell, not to be hanged after all.”  
  
“There would still be time for a dashing gallows rescue, if Will were up to it again.”  
  
“Let's hope it doesn't come to that,” she replied. “Is there anything else you need?”  
  
His eyes spoke for him, though he didn't realize it, as he leaned against the cell bars, looking at her in her cream day dress, so different from the pirate lass he'd known of late. It was eerily quiet in the corridor, as no one else had been jailed recently; only Jack, and he was left without anyone to talk to, save for the two visits he'd had from her. “And if it does come to that? What then?”  
  
“Will and his father and I shall figure out something,” she said confidently. “We sailed the world to bring you back, Jack; we would hardly let you be hanged.”  
  
“If Will and Bootstrap knew the true way o' things, they just might,” he said with a half smile, pleased to see her eyelids lower and lips part slightly in a small smile; it was the only indication she gave of what had passed between them. “It's only you and me, again, who really understand the way things are.”  
  
“I suppose,” she replied, lifting her eyes to meet his again. “I _am_ sorry you're in here. I know you must hate nothing worse than a cage.”  
  
“Quite right,” Jack said, straightening and leaving the grate to wander back toward the window. “Everyone has one fear that drives them, or so a wise man once said to me.”  
  
“You really find confinement more terrifying than death?”  
  
He looked out upon the sea, the bit of ocean that he could see through the window bars. “I've already died once. It's not so bad.”  
  
“So you'd have me believe.”  
  
He turned swiftly, and looked at her. “You know, I do think you and I are alike in that way, too. You think you fear death, but given a choice, you'd risk your life to avoid imprisonment, wouldn't you?”  
  
“I already have,” she said, furrowing her brows. “You forget, I was once on the other side of those bars, myself. Imprisoned. Confined.”  
  
“You don't think you might still be?”  
  
She tilted her head. “What are you talking about?”  
  
“You've stopped seeing the bars, Elizabeth, perhaps even stopped feeling the stays. Doesn't mean they're not there.”  
  
She frowned. “I don't know what you mean.”  
  
“Never mind,” he said, turning back to the window. “Well, I suppose this is goodbye. It's not how I pictured it.”  
  
“Nor I.” There was another long silence, and then Elizabeth said, “They're expecting me back around noon. I could stay another hour.”  
  
Jack smiled despite his foul mood, beginning to walk toward the bars again. “Find that dog with the keys, open this door and I'll make it worth your while.”  
  
To her credit, she did at least take a quick look for the absent dog before leaning her head conspiratorially toward the grate. “I was thinking more along the lines of a farewell tale.”  
  
“Still saddle-sore from the last time, eh?”  
  
“ _No_ ,” she said defensively, her voice making an octave jump, and he chuckled.   
  
“It's a farewell tale you want, is it? Well, I've got a few of those. Make yourself comfortable,” he said, nodding toward the low wooden bench that sat opposite the adjacent cell. She looked over at it, and then certain lowering of her lids as she went to drag it closer told him she was as frustrated as he was with the state of things; speaking through bars was not how they wanted to talk to each other. Spooned together, in bed, would be his preference.   
  
She positioned the bench opposite his cell and sat gingerly, her skirts in the way, tucking her feet underneath.   
  
“Best keep over there, unfortunately, as it wouldn't do for you to be found clinging to the bars of a pirate's cell, would it?”  
  
“Nor kneeling beside it,” she said, while he gracefully crossed his feet and sat on the floor, facing her through the bars.  
  
“And it would ruin that pretty dress,” Jack mused, letting her watch as his gaze touched her face, her shoulders and below in turn, before rising again to meet her eyes.  
  
“I don't care about the damned dress,” she whispered back.  
  
“Take it off?”  
  
She smiled, still meeting his eyes to play along. “To what end? You still _are_ behind bars.”  
  
Jack's hand emerged through a gap in the cross-hatch and he wiggled his fingers. “See, I can get my hand through, so it stands to reason-“  
  
“Jack, the _story_.”  
  
He sighed, looking quite forlorn, and then said, “All right, then. Farewell it is. Last night I told you some about my final farewell to Singapore, though how I ended up there in the first place is another story for another time, presuming there is another time... but this story is about my farewell to a very dear friend.”  
  
“Named?”  
  
“Opium.”  
  
  
* * * * * *  
  
His pipe was made of bamboo. When Queenie gave it to him, she told him in her usual brusque tone that in some places, bamboo was believed to contain pearls. A pearl only lodged itself in the bamboo field of someone virtuous, and therefore was precious. A gift.  
  
Jack didn't believe much in gifts, at the time, but was very grateful for the means to smoke. Queenie - as he'd soon dubbed Madam Chao Quin - seemed alternately concerned for him and fascinated by him. When he first arrived, she had asked about how he knew Captain Alberts, the man who'd sent him there, and he'd told her a version of the story. She was saddened to learn of his death.  
  
“Just how friendly were you?” Jack asked her one evening as they sipped cool tea, seated on the floor of her abode.  
  
Queenie smiled almost to herself, before rising gracefully. “Come - I will show you,” she said, and Jack followed her to another room. In an elegantly carved wooden box, she withdrew a cloth-wrapped bundle tied with cord. Inside there were books. English books. “He brought me these,” she said, and then gestured to the wall where another box stood. “Also that one, full of books. Many other gifts, also. A kind man.”  
  
The question Jack was really asking was whether or not Alberts had been her lover, and he had been about to clarify that when a voice said from the doorway, “Are you finished with tea?”  
  
Quin and Jack both turned, moving a little farther apart than they'd been standing. Easter, a girl of about eleven who Quin had taken under her wing for the moment, stood in the doorway in a simple, plain robe. “Yes,” said Quin, “and be careful. Don't drop the cup like last time.”  
  
Easter went without another word, and Jack watched her go before turning back to his companion. “She's doing well, then?”  
  
“Very well. Too smart. She wants to learn my business. I tell her, first you learn to make tea, speak well, read, count. Then, you learn my business.”  
  
Jack smiled at this. It was hard to say what exactly Chao Quin did, except for the plain truth: she made money. Lots of money. In the past she'd run a brothel, but now she left that to others. She personally operated tea houses and opium houses, and was on good terms with the owners of houses of less high repute; everything was connected in Singapore, and it seemed one could not go far without needing to pay Chao Quin for something. She had a few loyal maids in her residence, and a male servant who accompanied her to make trades for supplies. Sometimes Jack took the place of this man; he was most useful when they were dealing with English-speaking merchants in port, though his Portuguese was passable. There was also Peng Lao, a boy of about thirteen who sometimes ran her messages.   
  
When she walked on the street, people stepped aside and lowered their heads deferentially. When she demanded something, she got it. No one dared to take advantage of her or insult her in any way. Jack was confident that she was the best possible influence for the young, more or less orphaned Easter, who nonetheless showed great promise as a student. At times he borrowed a book or two of Quin's and worked with Easter on her letters.   
  
One particular morning he'd pulled a volume from Quin's shelf that he thought was the one they'd been looking at the previous day, only to find, upon opening it, that it contained illustrations of a most salacious nature. It was not in English, but the pictures spoke for themselves. If there'd been some doubt that Alberts had once been Queenie's lover, it was now gone.   
  
“What's the matter?” said Easter from where she knelt by the low table, sharpening the quill as Jack had shown her with his knife.   
  
“Nothing,” Jack said, closing the book - well, about to close it, since he turned a page and he saw a drawing of something he'd never thought about before.   
  
“What's _that_?” Easter said from right next to him, and he shut the book rapidly, silently cursing her ability to cross a room like a spirit, to appear where you least expected her.  
  
“Let's work on your penmanship today, shall we? Remember those skinny S's of yours? Better feed them, or they'll starve.”  
  
“Why can't I look at the book?”  
  
“It's not very interesting. Would bore you silly.”  
  
“I'll only find it when you leave.”  
  
“You'd better not.”  
  
He hastily replaced the book and then turned her by the shoulders and steered her back toward the table, noting with surprise that her shoulders were now at the level of his chest.  
  
He practiced for her. _Jack Sparrow_ , he wrote with a flourished S, and she copied him almost perfectly, except she had little sense of a line and the P-A-R-R-O-W seemed to drift up and away from the rest of the name. Flying up into the air.  
  
“Better keep hold of those letters, darling, or they'll get away from you,” he chastised, covering her small brown hand with his to hold it steady. At his touch her hand jumped a little, and he frowned, knowing that they'd had their differences... but the child had never balked at taking his hand, dirty, clean or otherwise. He wondered what had got into her, and maintained his grip as she tried again to write the name. This time everything was more or less aligned, but the 'w' was spread apart wide and flatter than how he'd written it.  
  
“What's wrong with that one?” he said, pointing with his ringed pinky to the squished letter. “Looks like a bird in flight.”  
  
“A sparrow _is_ a bird, isn't it?” she said, dipping the pen in the inkwell again.  
  
“Let's try your name, instead,” Jack said.  
  
“I don't care for my name,” Easter said, with an air of self-importance that she'd been acquiring of late. “Papa said I was called after a day someone came to a place I never liked.”  
  
At the mention of Alberts, Jack grew silent and pensive, and after a moment he rose. “Then pick yourself a new name, love,” he said over his shoulder as he walked toward the door. “Any one you like.” He was going to smoke.   
  
He ardently wished the girl hadn't brought up Alberts. Jack had no recourse once he began to think about him; knowing he was responsible for the young girl's 'papa' being gone plagued Jack with guilt at the same time that it thrust responsibility upon him. He resisted both by immersing himself in opium. He didn't want to be the girl's father, but neither could he ignore her completely. He strived each morning to find a balance, and when he failed, he went to smoke.  
  
When he came home, much later, after dark, slowly and exhaustedly, he found Quin had left a lantern lit for him so he could slip out of his shoes and find his way. Night had fallen, and he could still hear the songs of insects from the garden outside as he entered the silent house.  
  
He noticed the scroll still on the table, and he peered at it, seeing the long column of elegant characters she'd been practicing with Quin, later. But above that he saw where she'd left off with him. _Easter_ , she'd written with a decidedly fatter 's' than the day before. Underneath that, _Esther_. Jack smiled. They'd been reading the Bible the week before. He wondered if she'd remembered it, or if she'd gone to get the gargantuan volume from the shelf, and copied it down. His gaze fell to the line underneath that, where she'd written, with apparent careful effort, _Esther Sparrow_. The 'S' was flourished similar to his, and the 'w' was flat and birdlike as before. He didn't know quite what to make of that. With wide eyes and a furrowed brow, he rolled up the scroll and put it back on the table.  
  
In search of a distraction, he turned to the shelf, looking for the mysterious book from earlier, the book with the illustrations, and was dismayed to find an inch of empty space where it ought to have been. He had a fairly good idea who had it. He'd have to talk with Queenie about that in the morning.  
  
Easter learned. Quin made money. And Jack floated.  
  
Opium. Once he discovered that Queenie would see that he was served with whatever he wanted, as her guest, he indulged himself frequently. He smoked a pipe in the morning when he woke, or the afternoon, or the evening or all three; he lay sprawled on the cushions in the opium house and set about forgetting his life, his past. He floated through the days on a puff of sweet acrid smoke, only occasionally troubled by such things as bad memories and hunger and thirst. Everything floated, it seemed, in Singapore. Women whose light silk robes reached the ground seem to glide along the floor, and Singapore itself seemed to float on the coast, an island apart. A place where he could forget himself, and float away.  
  
There was a year of time he spent with Sao Feng, one or two adventures with him and his bunch; but that always ended the same way, Jack without a ship, Jack without a purpose, and Jack was back where he started, a room at the east end of Queenie's private residence, where he had a mat and cushions and enough clothes to get by. He got very used to silk; as a warm-weather fabric it was unmatched for comfort and ease. And he didn't care what he wore when he was lost in a haze of smoke. If he'd seen himself in a mirror, he would been struck by the difference in how he looked; his healthy tan faded as he spent more and more time indoors. He grew thinner as he ate less; half-dead men had little appetite.  
  
No doubt it alarmed Queenie more than once, but when she denied him opium he threatened to leave; and steal and rob enough to pay for it anyway, and she eventually relented, whether out of pity or shame, he didn't know. He didn't care. She seemed resigned to putting up with him, perhaps out of some loyalty to Alberts. She tried tempting him with exotic foods, which he tried but then forgot; she tried having fine women sent to him to entertain him. Mei Ling was one of those, extraordinarily beautiful, in fact, but not enough to keep Jack there. Not completely. It seemed nothing could restore Jack's lust for life.  
  
When the opium seeped into his blood and brain he felt as though he were outside of time itself, watching things unfold. He had no sense of days, months, years; smoke stayed the same always, and it was the one thing he counted on never to abandon him or betray him. He couldn't see that it was betraying him all this while, betraying his body and mind, to such an extent that he would forget large portions of things that happened during this period of his life, and people would whisper that he wasn't right in the head. Not that they hadn't ever said that before, but this was more evident. A lurch in his step. A detachment from his body that, in the future, was at times a blessing, at times an impediment.   
  
One evening, he was in a delightful haze, at peace, lying on a beach. Of course, he wasn't _really_ lying on a beach, he was sprawled on cushions in the opium house, and the waves he heard were the gentle groans of other men and the swish of the attendants as they passed in their robes. He didn't know how long he was there, but it must have been very late. After what seemed like hours, he felt a woman lay down beside him. He thought this part of the fantasy, too, and reached over to feel his fingers brush a soft arm. “'Lo, love,” he murmured, eyes closed. Opium was miraculous, really, in the things it could conjure in his brain.  
  
“Hello... Jack,” the woman whispered, and he brought the soft arm closer, over his face, brushing his lips against the wrist. The wrist was small, delicately boned, but delightfully firm against his open mouth. The smell of her skin was intoxicating, and vaguely familiar. Wood, earth... nuts, perhaps. Almonds. Sweet, smoky. He breathed in against her wrist, tested the skin's texture with his teeth.  
  
“Do you think I'm beautiful?” came the woman's voice, still a whisper, hesitant, and Jack pretended to be deep in thought, when the truth was he lacked the will to even open his eyes. He didn't care what she looked like. Her identity was of little consequence, though he thought her to be Mei Ling or another of Queenie's “gifts.”  
  
“Of course, darling.” He pulled on the arm and her body fell against him, half on top of him. She was petite, but he could feel her soft curves through the silk of her robe, fitting all his hollows. His thumb brushed the gentle swell of a breast. He could feel her breath on his chin, and she seemed to hesitate again. With much effort he lifted an arm to splay a hand across her silk-clad lower back, knowing that in this state he wouldn't be good for much, but they were only playing, after all. And he didn't even know if she was real.  
  
At the touch of his hand she started a little, her breath catching in a little gasp, and he chuckled as he pressed her closer against him. She had nothing to fear. He could barely move.   
  
Then she seemed to relax, and he felt the gentlest brush of lips on his. Soft lips, tender lips. They settled more firmly on his, and he allowed himself to be kissed, for a few seconds only, before parting his lips to kiss back. Funny, his fantasies didn't usually involve such teasing; imaginary women usually kissed him like they knew what they were about. Perhaps she was real. Even better. He opened his mouth even more and tasted the inside of her lip with his tongue... she was very sweet. Despite his altered condition, he felt his body stir... just a bit... more of a twitch than a stir, just a little _something_ against the curve of her thigh. She suddenly jerked back, and he felt the push of two hands on his chest as she raised herself above him.  
  
His curiosity was aroused, even if his body couldn't quite manage it. His eyelids, feeling heavy as anchors, rose in three painstaking segments, like a curtain being raised by a weak rope-puller. The face he saw peering down at him was familiar yet different; very round, beneath hair pulled into the knot the women here preferred, a bit of kohl on her dark upper lashes. A small, flat nose, above full, dusky lips. Cheeks and forehead, color of almond skin; eyes almond-shaped, too. It was the eyes that finally penetrated his fog of unreality. He knew those eyes.  
  
Easter.  
  
“Good _God_ ,” he said, turning so fast she fell off onto the floor in a heap, a squeak her only protest, as he sat up as fast as he could, attempting to scramble to his feet. It was a mistake. He wasn't moving nearly as quickly or effectively as he thought, and no sooner had he left the pillows than he tumbled to the floor beside her, his head swimming. “Buggering hell, what is the matter with you?” he growled at her, though his speech sounded slurred to his own ears.  
  
A haughty sniff, as she gathered her robe around her, straightening it, sitting on her calves. She patted her hair with one hand. “I thought... you said I was beautiful.”  
  
“You're a beautiful _ten-year-old_!” he snapped, dragging his fingers across his lips.  
  
He was surprised to hear her laugh, and it was not the carefree laugh of a child, but the cultured, bell-pretty laugh of a woman. “Jack,” she said when she'd finished giggling, “I'm sixteen.”  
  
She pronounced her age with such formality that she clearly considered herself a woman grown. Jack's head spun, and it was no longer just the opium but everything she'd said and every way she'd said it. “In the first place,” he said, pointing a finger at her, “when did you start calling me 'Jack'? It's been 'Sparrow' all this time. And _second_ ,” here he leaned back, using a hand to try to push himself up off the floor, “you can't be sixteen, and lying's a very bad habit, young missy. I know. I'm a bloody expert.”  
  
She moved to help him up, and he tried to smack her hand away, swooshing through empty air as he missed. He tilted his head; his depth perception was shot to hell. Her hands were under his arms, and she was guiding him back onto the pillows. “Don't touch me,” he protested. “You're ten years old.”  
  
“Jack, I really am sixteen,” she said, kneeling beside him. “I've grown up.”  
  
His mind reeled. Was it possible? Had he been in Singapore for _six years_? When he'd decided he didn't want to die, only take a little break from life, he never imagined it would be six years long. It was mind-boggling. His lovely floating sensation had become a dizzying spin, and he wanted to smoke more. He opened his eyes. “Get me a pipe,” he said to her. She regarded him, her head inclined to the side. It was a gesture that reminded him so much of their time aboard ship that he felt nauseated. “Move, will you?”  
  
“I don't think you should smoke any more tonight... Sparrow,” she said, a teasing glint in her eye. “It's not good for you.”  
  
“You're going to tell me what's good for me?” he almost growled. “You're ten!”  
  
“Sixteen!”  
  
“Sixteen or sixty, you'll always be ten to me, and that's God's honest truth.” She sighed petulantly, and Jack narrowed his eyes at her. “So don't get any more ideas about kissing me. Ever, ever again.”  
  
She climbed to her feet, slowly, gracefully, the way Queenie probably had taught her. She glanced over him with a look of disdain. “I thought you'd like it,” she said.  
  
Jack closed his eyes, shutting out the disgust he felt for himself. “Get out of here, unless you're going to do something useful, like bring me a goddamn pipe.”  
  
“You're pathetic,” she said with a scathing disdain Jack knew he had heard somewhere before. “And to think... I used to admire you. I thought you handsome... heroic.”  
  
Her words struck a nerve, only deepening his shame, his self-loathing. “Well, now you know better, don't you?” he retorted. “If you're as grown as you claim, you won't make _that_ mistake again.” He settled back onto the cushions, turning away from her. He longed for oblivion.  
  
The very next day he sought out an associate of Sao Feng's at the abandoned temple where the pirates congregated. Within a few days he was on a ship. Where they went, what precisely they did, had since evaporated from Jack's mind, like leaves burned into smoke.  
  
  
* * * *  
  
Jack stopped narrating, regarding Elizabeth through the bars of the jail as he sat on the floor and she on the bench. It wasn't the end of the story, precisely. But it was all he cared to tell.  
  
“How old would she be, now?” Elizabeth asked, seeming intrigued.  
  
“Why, she'd be...” Jack considered, and then came to a startling realization. “Your age. Twenty or so. Maybe even older than you.” He rubbed his forehead with a palm. Was it really possible? Was Elizabeth so young? Was he so old?  
  
“What happened to her?”  
  
Jack mentally sailed through the part he'd omitted. “She married Peng Lao.” _Before running off with a pirate crewman of Sao Feng's, never to be heard from again_. He didn't want to tell Elizabeth that, either. He was torn between fantasizing that she might do something similar, and not being able to stomach the thought of her in harm's way. Not that she hadn't faced it before. Realizing she was Easter's age made him feel suddenly like he ought to protect Elizabeth (though she could protect herself quite well) instead of luring her to the other side of life, pied-pipering her all the way to destruction. He didn't really have it all sorted out at the moment, and so he withheld the tidbit about Easter's eventual disappearance.   
  
“That's all?” Elizabeth said in an annoyed tone. “All that pluck and cleverness and she ended up marrying the messenger boy?”  
  
Jack smiled at her. “Don't forget beauty, and he was a fine messenger boy. Grew into a good man. I thought you'd be happy to hear it; what's wrong with that?”  
  
“Well, nothing, I suppose.” Elizabeth looked down, to the side, compressing her mouth before speaking again. “And right after that, your farewell to Singapore? The part you told me last night?”   
  
“What I just described was more or less my farewell to opium. I never wanted to lose myself like that again.” It was a weighted statement, and one they both took a moment to digest. He hoped she wouldn't notice he hadn't answered her question.  
  
No such luck. “And after that?” Elizabeth prompted.  
  
There were things he didn't want to tell, after that, between that and the part she already knew. As much as he wanted to forestall their goodbye, he thought the best course of action to deal with the parting directly, and avoid the more sordid part of the story. Let them part on a better note. “The sun is high,” he remarked. “It's late.”  
  
Elizabeth glanced at the sunlight pouring almost straight down onto the floor from the window. “You're right. They'll be expecting me.”  
  
“Go, then,” Jack said before this goodbye could get bigger, uglier, swallow them both. “Help Bootstrap get in, with the necessary properties, at the proper hour.”  
  
“I will.” Another long pause. “Jack-“  
  
“Don't,” he said abruptly. “Let's not make this difficult. We know where we stand, don't we?”  
  
“I... suppose,” she said, rising to her feet as he did the same. She came to stand directly in front of the bars again, and it was where they might have been inclined to kiss goodbye. Save for the iron grille. “This is ghastly. I...”  
  
“Have a lovely wedding,” he said, smiling a little for her sake. He did mean it, and she saw that he did, and smiled back, despite the irony. Or perhaps because of it.  
  
“Thank you,” she said. “I daresay it's bound to go more smoothly than the last one.”  
  
More words would not come; they only looked at each other. He thought he saw something in her eyes that he never thought he'd see, not for him; it alarmed him a little, given the situation. It pleased him and unnerved him at the same time, to have her look at him like that. Like he was better than he was, like there could be something more than what there had been. He reminded himself that women sometimes fancied themselves in love when they weren't, or when they'd been thoroughly and most deliciously debauched the way he'd done her, and it was too fresh in her mind and body. Like catching a cold, he thought, it was bound to pass.  
  
Not that it mattered, anyway. In the next day or two he'd be gone (one way or another) and she'd be married to Will Turner; best to make a clean break. One of his hands came up to spread out flat against the iron bars and she instinctively lifted hers to match it, parts of their palms and fingers touching through the spaces in that terribly ironic grate. He watched as she glanced up and down the deserted corridor, before leaning closer.  
  
She angled her head toward him, eyes still half open, until her nose brushed the edge of the grate, and he met her lips with his, lightly, tenderly. She kissed the triangle of hair below his lip, then just his lower lip, just his upper. His forehead pressed against the grille as he strained to get closer. The frustration was agony. He wanted her again. Here. Now.  
  
“Goodbye, Jack, and good luck,” she whispered between his hungrily parted lips, and then with a quick glance up, whirled and left hurriedly, her skirts leaving a dry swishing sound in her wake. A vague sense of deja-vu came over him, and he realized it was the same turn of her shoulders, the same fearful exit she'd made when she left him chained to the _Pearl_. He smiled to himself, knowing now that it wasn't guilt or revulsion that sped her feet; no, she left without looking back, to keep from making it any worse, to keep from doing or saying something she thought she'd regret even more than a hasty exit.  
  
After she had gone, Jack settled back down on the floor of his cell. All he had to do was wait, now. He had hours until he could put his plan into action, and was frustratingly obligated to depend on others for it. He closed his eyes.   
  
There was, of course, a lot more to the story than he'd told Elizabeth. He might tell her the rest of it, someday, if he ever saw her again. He was in need of entertainment, with a little, inevitable self-recrimination as preparation for the next farewell, and so he lay on the floor and began to remember, on purpose.  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

  
  
Jack had long ago acquired the talent of closing his eyes and going somewhere else, and as he employed it, lying on the floor of his jail cell, the hard floor and bright sunlight and dim shadows seemed to meld and fade into his memory.  
  
Six months after the incident in the opium house and his consequent escape by sea with Sao Feng to parts forgotten - not completely, but perhaps _better_ forgotten? - he returned to Singapore, leaner, browner, and much more clear of mind than when he'd left. Queenie was glad to see him looking well.  
  
So was Easter. Jack groaned inwardly at the spark he saw in her eyes when he entered the room. She tried to hide it beneath demurely lowered lashes, but she was still too young to guard her reactions. This crush, infatuation, whatever it was, had lingered. He tried to remember if any sixteen-year-old girls he'd known in his youth went suddenly insane. He concluded insanity was probably temporary, and tried not to worry as he kept his distance.  
  
In his absence Quin had given the girl more responsibilities. She no longer fetched and carried tea, but accompanied Chao Quin on her errands, and was introduced to important people. She was becoming a sort of apprentice. Jack wasn't sure what to make of that. But she seemed well, and Quin had given her a larger room near her own, one that overlooked the garden. Easter called her 'Older Sister' in their language, a title of respect more for family or friends, not an employer.  
  
One morning soon after his return, he padded down the clay-floored hall to find Easter kneeling at the table, sunlight pouring in, her inkwell and scroll before her. He had been trying to resist the urge to smoke, but it had finally won out. It was clear he wouldn't make it out the door without encountering the girl. She looked up and saw him.  
  
“Jack!” she said, clearly delighted, a smile shaping her round cheeks. “Come and help me, like you used to.”  
  
He approached the table warily, crossing his feet and seating himself opposite from her, as far as possible. “How may I be of assistance?” he drawled in a morning-thick voice.  
  
“I can't get these characters right. They come out all crooked. You must steady my hand, like you did before, when I was little.”  
  
“Little- _er_ ,” he corrected. “You're still quite young, m'dear.” He smiled at her, keeping his hands firmly in his lap. “And _do_ remember my saying you shall always be so little, in my eyes.”  
  
She blinked at him, once, before reaching out to dip the pen in the inkwell. “I do remember. I also remember your saying that you were a consummate liar, and so I thought perhaps-“  
  
“Where'd you learn that word? 'Consummate'?”  
  
She looked pleased. “From a book. It also means -“  
  
“I _know_ what the bloody hell it means. You're pronouncing it wrong. ' _Con_ -smet,' the way you're using it.”  
  
“And the other way?” She glanced up, a thin brow raised.  
  
“Never mind that,” he said, getting up to go. “That's not a word a girl needs at the age of sixteen.”  
  
“Seventeen,” she called after his rapidly retreating back. “I had a birthday while you were gone.”  
  
_Not listening, not listening_ , Jack told himself as he walked more quickly out into the garden.  
  
  
At the last moment Jack veered away from the opium house, telling himself he really needed to think. He wandered. By the time he returned that evening, he had formed a plan.  
  
It was simple, really. Easter was a girl at a tender age, and having apparently settled all qualms about her gender, had set about doing what she saw women doing (more than she ought to have, Jack thought, and he'd have to talk to Queenie about exactly where the girl ought to be allowed to go): seducing men. And he was the obvious choice, as one of the few men she came into contact with. He'd need to speak to Queenie about seeing that she met some reasonably upstanding young men and women her own age. As much as it pained him to think it, he and Queenie were the closest thing to parents the girl had, and it was time to consider her future.  
  
But that was really only half the plan; the other half was to make himself unavailable, never mind less appealing. It would solve several problems at once, this plan, kill two birds with one stone, as it were. He'd been a long time without a woman. He could find Mei Ling or another like her for a night's company, but the efficient solution was right in front of him.  
  
“Queenie, darling, have I mentioned that you look absolutely lovely this evening?”  
  
Quin looked up from her ledger with a very suspicious expression, quill quivering in hand, to where he posed in the entryway. “What do you want now? No more loans. You get food, bed, and opium. That's it. And only because Alberts liked you.”  
  
He looked at her in the lantern light, and while she was not beautiful, neither was she the opposite. Her features were strong and clear, her hair thick and black, her eyes elegant and yet piercing. She saw everything. She knew a ploy when she saw one. The only question would be if she were interested or not.  
  
“You don't like me at all, then?” he said, trying to look forlorn, as he sidled the rest of the way into the room and knelt beside her at the table.  
  
She cast a glance over him before returning her gaze to the ledger. The quill scratched over the paper. “Go see Mei Ling,” she said quietly, without looking up.  
  
“I don't want Mei Ling,” he murmured, and it was the truth. He took the liberty of leaning forward and pressing a kiss beneath her smooth jaw, parting his lips against her neck. She stilled, and he drew back to see her eyelids had closed. He watched until they opened again, and then she was regarding him with a slight smile.  
  
“Six years you've been here. Is that the best you can do?”  
  
“No, now that you mention it,” he replied, and kissed her. He was thinking that her lips were quite nice, her breath warm and sweet, and that he might have considered this solution a long time ago, when he heard a voice from the doorway.  
  
“Older Sister, forgive me,” the female voice said in Quin's language, “I left my -“  
  
Jack broke the kiss to see Easter standing in the doorway, slippers in hand, mouth agape. Quin sat up straight, and he watched her assume an authoritative face. “Come back later, girl,” she answered in her tongue, and then to Jack in English she said, “Let us go to sleep.”  
  
Jack stared as Easter whirled and ran from the room. He sighed. “Yes, to bed. That would be best.”  
  
Quin's room was lovely though not luxurious; red adorned the walls and soft mats, and fresh flowers cut from the garden floated in a bowl beside the bed's pillows. It would be a lie to say that he didn't want her, didn't enjoy her; she was soft and warm, if not quite young, and neither was he, any longer. Her hair was extraordinary, long and black and he wound it in his fist as they lay curled together, naked.  
  
As his heartbeat slowed he became aware of other sounds. The wind in the trees outside, the gentle gurgling of water, and another sound: crying. A woman's distant, muffled sobs.  
  
“Is that-?”  
  
“Yes, it's her,” Quin answered, her lips moving against Jack's bare arm. “I hear her. If I go in, she stops and pretends she was not crying after all. She hasn't been like this since she first came... maybe she is spoiled. I don't understand why she's so unhappy now.”  
  
Jack, feeling every year of his age and twice as much of a heel, thought he knew, but hoped he was wrong.  
  
6\. Bamboo, Part Two  
  
He woke before Queenie, who seemed to be sleeping quite deeply as he uncoiled her arms from around him and rose to find his clothes and slippers. He slipped quietly out of the room, mentally banishing the thought of opium - it was what he really wanted, on this particular morning, but then again, most mornings he wanted it - and after seeing to necessities, thought he would make his way across the abode to the room where he normally slept with no one the wiser. The servants would say nothing; it was not them he was concerned about.  
  
He was not in luck, which was not really surprising, since he was of the opinion his luck had deserted him a long, long time ago. Easter already knelt at the table in a royal blue silk robe that complimented her pecan skin, a book open before her, an impatient expression on her face. She looked up as he entered.  
  
“Morning,” he said. “You're up early.”  
  
“It's actually quite late,” she said imperiously, dropping her eyes to the book. “Why did you sleep in _her_ room?”  
  
“Not much for small talk, are you?” Jack said, stalling, meandering over toward the bookshelf. “I don't suppose it's any of your business why I did.” He kept his tone light, but reminded himself that if he were less kind to her, she might be more likely to give up on him.  
  
“The Bible says that's improper and sinful,” she retorted, and he saw that was the large volume she had in front of her.  
  
“So you know why I slept in there, then,” he mused, trailing a finger over the spines of the books. He looked at her over his shoulder, and for the first time really saw the young _woman_ sitting there. He thought for a moment, and considered that he might be taking the wrong approach. Easter really wasn't a child, any more; perhaps he ought to fight fire with fire. The girl would soon find she was vastly outgunned. “If you want to know the particulars, there's a book for that, too.” He inserted two fingers into a space between two books, where a certain book ought to have been, but wasn't, and he hung his arm by those two fingers, curling them into a hook.  
  
He turned his head to look at her over his shoulder again, catching her eyes. He employed one of his best weapons: the knowing look. It was a look reserved for grown-ups; he had used it on countless women, men, boys on his crew not much older than Easter, but this was the first time he'd ever used it on _her_. His eyes stretched into warm, wide slits, and he pulled up the corner of his lip in a smile that simultaneously shared a secret and threatened to expose it. He whispered, “You know the one, I think?”  
  
He was pleased to see her cheeks color, and she looked down guiltily, away from his eyes. “I don't know what you mean,” she mumbled. She thought she had him, did she? She had no idea who she was dealing with. And she was a poor liar, he observed. If she hadn't been such a pest about everything, he might have even taught her to lie well.  
  
“Enjoy your reading,” he said as he stepped out into the garden. By the time he came back, she was gone.  
  
  
He returned that evening after a most relaxed day; he felt better than he had in ages. And he hadn't even smoked, but spent some time with the pirates down at the abandoned temple, and at dusk, made his way “home.” He ran into Peng Lao, the messenger boy, on his way out of the house, in a hurry as usual. Jack noted once again the passage of time; Peng Lao was almost a man, too.  
  
Chao Quin was waiting for him. Her hair was mostly coiled at the crown of her head, but a few long black strands tumbled down to brush her shoulders; she was wearing a deep rose silk robe that was ornately embroidered and fit her still-fine form. There was a candle burning on the table. When Jack entered, she looked up at him from her place by the table, and smiled. He felt his black pirate heart jump a little - just a little - and thought to himself that she looked ten years younger. He congratulated himself on having such an effect on a woman like her.  
  
He wasted no time in removing his shoes and seating himself beside her. Close beside her.  
  
“That robe is _most_ becoming on you, I must say,” Jack whispered into her ear, reaching for the belt with his fingers. “Pity it's not going to stay on you very long.”  
  
To his surprise, she smacked his hand gently away with her fingers, and then smiled. “Would you like tea?”  
  
He shrugged, not feeling impatient. There was plenty of time for tea. Time would pass. Let it.  
  
Just then Easter entered the room, quietly, from the side hallway that led to her room, so on-cue that Jack wondered if she'd been listening. “Older sister, did you call?” she asked in Quin's language, and her eyes passed over Jack as though he were a toad cart-squashed on the path.  
  
“No, little one,” Quin replied in English. “I only wanted tea. Where is Qiu Li?”  
  
“In her room with an aching tooth,” Easter said sweetly, switching to English fluidly. “No need to trouble the maid, Older Sister, I will fetch the tea for you.”  
  
“Oh, don't bother,” Jack put in, “you aren't the maid any more, little one, after all?”  
  
Easter's eyes met his, and they held a spark of challenge. “To bring the tea will be my pleasure,” she insisted, and crossed the room to go to the kitchen before anyone could tell her not to.  
  
When she left, Jack stole another kiss, quickly, from Queenie, before settling on a cushion by the low table. “I saw Peng Lao just now. Boy's grown big.”  
  
“Grew so fast, like bamboo,” Quin said in agreement. “And he's a good boy, too.”  
  
“Queenie, I was thinking-“ Jack began, but then Easter returned with the rectangular tea tray - also made of bamboo - and she set it on the edge of the table and began to unload.  
  
“There are only two cups,” Quin said to her after a moment. “Fetch another.”  
  
Easter looked up in surprise. “Are you expecting a guest at this late hour, Older Sister?”  
  
“Silly girl,” Quin admonished her in English. “You will join us. You're not a maid, and neither are you a child.”  
  
“Some would say different,” Easter said, her eyes downcast, but Jack knew the barb was directed at him. He also wondered if he ought to take Quin into confidence about Easter's feelings for him. Surely encouraging her to accompany the two of them was a recipe for disaster.  
  
“Nonsense,” Quin said, except the word's meaning in her language was much stronger and smelled more pungently.  
  
“Then I will pour for you, first,” Easter said, and held the china pot in her hand, delicately, gracefully, as she filled Quin's cup.  
  
Jack watched her, the loose sleeve of her royal blue robe hanging loose enough to expose the elegant shape of her wrist and roundness of her forearm. For some reason, as he watched the steam rise, he felt at peace, and had a moment of connection with his past and perhaps his future, as well. It had been a long time since Jack felt he belonged anywhere, and even longer since he'd felt he had something like a _family_. And though none of the three of them were related to each other, on the warm Singapore night with the song of the insects wafting in from the garden and the scent of the jasmine tea filling the candlelit room, Jack felt a strong sense of possessiveness. He lay a palm on Quin's silk-clad thigh and watched as Easter leaned over to hold out the cup to her.  
  
He should have remembered that there is no one more vulnerable than a man who thinks he's won.  
  
As Easter bent forward, he saw her eyes widen, and he rapidly snatched his palm away from Quin's lap. She had seen, of course. He saw her cheeks turn as pink as Quin's robe, and the hand that rested on the teapot's handle shook a little. She remained there, unmoving.  
  
“Well, what's wrong?” Quin prompted. “Pour for Jack. If he likes, perhaps you can call him 'Older Brother' from now on.”  
  
He looked up from where he had been watching Easter's trembling hand to where two pairs of dark eyes now fixed upon him. “Er,” he said. “Why not, eh?”  
  
“Oh, I think 'Uncle' would be better,” Easter said, employing a term in their language usually used for men with gray hair and beards. “I must respect my _elders_ , after all.”  
  
Jack smiled, but not nicely. The girl was learning to play. So be it. “Oh, yes, you should learn to do that, little one. No sneaking up on your elders in the opium den, eh?”  
  
Easter's eyes snapped up, and he saw they were sparking with anger. He'd humiliated her that night - as well as himself - and she hadn't forgotten it. And now, he realized, he'd crushed her hopes of love by taking up with the one other person in the world she truly cared for and respected. He began to consider his course of action to have been perhaps unwise, as he watched Easter pour again.  
  
He should have seen it coming, the way her hand had shaken, the way her eyes had flashed. He should have known the girl - seventeen or not, still very young - would not take kindly to him and Quin, would lash out, would try to revenge herself.  
  
She tilted the cup very gracefully, suddenly. A well-feigned accident.  
  
The cup emptied its contents onto Jack, steam and all, soaking his tunic and lap. It was scalding hot.  
  
“ _Bloody buggering hell_!” Jack roared as he leapt up, and the cup crashed to the table.  
  
“Clumsy girl!” Quin said, rushing over to help Jack.  
  
“Oh, I'm so sorry!” Easter cried, her voice high-pitched with apparent alarm.  
  
“Take it off, hurry,” Quin was whispering, her slender fingers working at the clasps of Jack's tunic.  
  
“Buggerbugger _bugger_ it's fucking _hot_ ,” he hissed, pulling the silk away from his suddenly-scorched skin. “Goddammit to hell! Buggerin' blisterin' _hell_!”  
  
“Sorry! Sorry!” Easter said, scrambling around to his other side. She saw Quin rapidly undoing his tunic, and her eyes fell to the steaming wet tea stain on his black silk pants as he hopped back and forth from one foot to the other, still swearing violently. She reached her hands for the sides of his pants, and Jack honestly didn't know whether he was more alarmed by being burned alive or that he was about to be made indecent in front of both of them.  
  
Quin stopped Easter from stripping him by laying a hand on her wrist. “Go get cool water from the fountain,” she said through clenched teeth. “Hurry.”  
  
Easter rose and obeyed, dashing from the room.  
  
“Queenie, it fucking hurts,” he said, as she peeled the tunic from his shoulders, balling it up to mop up any remaining tea from his stomach as he undid the cloth belt of his trousers. With a quick look up at him she loosened them and they fell. It wasn't quite the reason he'd pictured losing his pants with Queenie kneeling in front of him, but she rapidly fell to mopping his thighs and the juncture of his hip, where the tea had landed. Some God somewhere was to be thanked that at least Easter's oft-sharp aim had failed her.  
  
The girl re-entered from the garden with a bucket, and Jack saw her eyes widen as she stepped in the room. Thankfully, Queenie's head centered between his hips still provided him a bit of decency.  
  
“Put it down and leave us,” Quin commanded in a tone that was not to be ignored. Easter dropped the bucket and fled.  
  
Queenie tended him herself, dipping a bit of kitchen cloth into the bucket and laying it on Jack's pink skin. It might blister in a day or so, but after a little while the sting had gone and Queenie went to get him a fresh tunic and trousers. She made him a poultice and lay that on, too, once they got into bed.  
  
They lay together on the soft sleeping mats that night, Jack miserably uncomfortable and unable to sleep. It wasn't just the burn.  
  
“That girl,” he murmured to Queenie, “something must be done.”  
  
“It was an accident,” Quin answered, stroking his chest with her fingers. “The pain will heal.”  
  
Jack was quite sure it wasn't an accident, but to explain would require a long tale he didn't have the strength to tell. He closed his eyes and slept fitfully, uneasily, plagued by a sense that nothing could remain the way it was.  
  
  
When he woke in the morning, stumbling out to see to bodily necessaries, he peeked at his skin to see it was quite red where the tea had scalded him. He entered the main room from another direction, and stopped when he saw Easter's petite form silhouetted against the doors to the garden. Her robe was red this morning; fitting, since he felt rather like wrapping his hands around her throat until her face were the same color.  
  
She turned, and sunlight poured in around her, making her seem somewhat ethereal, sky-born, angelic, perhaps. She still had a way of fading into nature, seeming to be one with whatever surrounded her. “Good day, Uncle,” she said in the island's language before switching to English. “Did you rest well?”  
  
“Wonderfully, save for being half-boiled,” he said darkly, making his way toward her.  
  
She sighed, smiling a little. “I am very sorry about the tea. Apologize to Older Sister for me, will you please?”  
  
“No, I bloody well won't,” he snapped, reaching her and taking hold of an arm. “And the next time you have an 'accident' like that, I'll find a long piece of bamboo to make your bare bottom redder than this garment, my dear, and make no mistake,” he said in a low voice.  
  
“I'm too old to be beaten with cane,” she said sweetly, shaking him from her arm.  
  
“Awfully sure, aren't you?”  
  
“Older Sister won't let you.”  
  
“'Older Sister' can watch the whole bloody thing, and try to stop me if she dares,” Jack growled, flinging her arm loose. Then the mental picture formed in his head, and his eyes widened at the strange eroticism of it. He shook it off, collecting his thoughts.  
  
At that moment, Chao Quin entered, trailed by Qiu Li.  
  
“Good morning,” Quin said with a disguised smile for Jack. He could feel Easter's eyes boring into his face as he returned Quin's smile. He began to think he'd not been the first man to open a Pandora's box when he was acting with good intentions.  
  
Yet, for the better part of a year, there was relative peace.  
  
The less he stayed at home, the better, he concluded over the next month or two. Quin asked if he were avoiding her, but she couldn't complain when he did return to her bed each night. In the meantime, he'd visited the pirates, seen novelties they'd brought back from far places, felt the yearning pull out to sea, again. He missed the sea terribly, and no matter how many times he voyaged out it was never enough.  
  
After the tea spill, he also began to relinquish Eastern garb in favor of the clothes he'd had upon arrival. He took them from where Quin had stored them in a lidded wooden trunk carved with the images of animals, and wore those clothes when he went out, which was often. He did stand out in the city, not that there weren't many visitors from foreign lands. The only place no one cared the least bit what he looked like was the opium house; he'd begun to frequent it again.  
  
It was more of a hiding place than anything. Half the time he lay upon the divan, sober, thinking. He watched people come in, stagger out. He thought about the sea, about the _Pearl_ , about Alberts and Anamaria. He began to get restless. Restlessness led to guilt; guilt led to smoking. By the end of each day he'd had at least _some_.  
  
One afternoon he looked over to see brown-grey mutton chop sideburns on a neighboring pile of cushions. A man groaned. Smoke rose. Jack was not quite floating yet, and so his sympathies were stirred. The clothes marked the man as coming from Jack's side of the world.  
  
“What ails you, friend?”  
  
“Aye, and what doesn't,” the man responded, exhaling a puff of smoke. “No man has a mistress as brutal as mine, is about the size of it. What could be worse, I ask ye?”  
  
Jack smiled ruefully to himself, thinking of the women at 'home'. “Two mistresses, each more brutal than the other.”  
  
“Aye, I suppose that's true,” the man grunted in response, and Jack began to think the man's voice somewhat familiar.  
  
“What be the name of this harpy, mate?” Jack asked.  
  
“None other than the sea,” came the reply. “She's taken everything from me, and yet she calls me back to her again and again.”  
  
Something about the cadence of his words struck a nerve with Jack. He sat up on an elbow. “...Master Gibbs, is that you?”  
  
The man immediately began to choke on the puff of smoke he'd just drawn in, and sputtered, swearing, as he rolled to the side to peer at Jack through the haze. “Jack... Sparrow?”  
  
“None other,” Jack said with a grin, rising to a sitting position. “What brings you back to the particular den of iniquity goes by the name of Singapore?”  
  
“The yen for adventure, I 'spose, and then there's the opium and the lasses,” Gibbs replied. “And yerself? How on earth did you end up back here?”  
  
“I never left,” Jack said soberly, realizing seven years had passed since he'd last seen Gibbs; seven years of his life, more decidedly marked than most, with that long-ago bargain he'd tried not to think of. Seven years had drifted up into the air, like smoke, leaving him on the ground.  
  
  
  
It was encountering Gibbs again that finally shifted the tenuous balance Jack had achieved, back toward the sea, back toward escape and freedom. But he was still in need of a ship, _his_ ship... and theft was a dangerous business, here, one he'd rather not risk while Quin and Easter remained behind. Easter had not thrown anything at him, of late, save for weighty glances. He saw her in passing as she ran errands for Chao Quin about town, but only occasionally at home, though her bedroom was not far from Quin's. Jack noticed small things of his disappearing, every so often - trinkets here and there, once his opium pipe, a scarf or two. He surmised Easter had snatched them, in the hopes of getting his attention. It annoyed him, but to respond was to let her win; instead, he pretended not to miss the items at all, and carried on, all the while keeping his eyes open for her, warily.  
  
Easter had made sure he knew when spring had passed and she had reached the age of eighteen - as though she thought that might change his mind. He noted with chagrin that he had trouble finding the girl inside the woman, as he used to; she moved like a woman, with a lithe grace. She spoke like one, too, fewer outbursts, more carefully chosen words. He gave no indication that it mattered one way or another. He was biding his time. He had to sail out, recapture the _Pearl_ , become himself again... Eventually he knew he'd have to ask Quin's help, but he delayed as long as possible. He met Gibbs a number of times and they caroused with the pirates, visited the opium den, and occasionally frequented the brothel.  
  
Jack didn't partake in any of the brothel's offerings, as it was well-known, now, that he was Quin's lover; Jack left his boots, which he'd taken to wearing again, at the door, and Gibbs would disappear with one girl or another. Jack would smoke or drink, relaxing on a divan, imagining himself somewhere else.  
  
One evening he felt the gentle trace of female fingers on his forehead as he waited, half-dozing, for Gibbs. He had seen Easter there, earlier, retrieving a satchel of coin for Chao Quin, and so his eyes snapped open and he caught the hand, having sworn not to repeat mistakes of his past. When he saw the fingers belonged to Mei Ling, he was not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed; in any case, she smiled and curled beside him on the floor, next to the divan. She was exquisitely beautiful, with pale skin, large eyes and a small, gentle swell of a nose above lips reddened with berry juice. He also knew from experience that the outward beauty masked a resilient character and surprisingly generous demeanor, given that women like her didn't have easy lives.  
  
“Hello, darling,” Jack said. “Been a long time.”  
  
“Oh, yes,” she replied. Her English was not as good as Quin's, but it was passable. Jack did know a few choice words in their language, as well, for conducting such necessities as he saw fit; Mei Ling had taught him quite a few. “Jack, are you well?”  
  
“Right as rain,” he said automatically, and then realized she was not merely being polite; she was genuinely curious, which meant she had reason to believe otherwise. “Why wouldn't I be?”  
  
Mei Ling looked down as though embarrassed, and then finally, hesitantly, back at Jack. “I was very sorry to hear of your... how do you say? Your...illness.”  
  
“My illness?” Jack echoed, raising himself on an elbow. “What the devil are you talking about? I'm fine.”  
  
“Oh - oh, of course,” Mei Ling said, with placating motions of both palms. “I only mean, I hope that you heal, and that the... effects?... are not lasting many summers. I know how to make a cream that may help you... shall I make for you?”  
  
Jack stared, dumbfounded. “Mei Ling, what is it that you believe to be wrong with me, precisely?”  
  
Mei Ling, clearly confused, lowered her eyes again. “I am sorry to offend you.”  
  
“No, no,” Jack said, leaning down to look at her. “None of that false modesty you lot are so good at. Out with it. Who's been saying what about me? What the devil have I got that needs healing?”  
  
Mei Ling seemed to blush, still looking away. “I don't know, in the English.”  
  
“Tell me your words, then.”  
  
She looked more uncomfortable, and then finally leaned up to whisper in his ear several words Jack recognized, although he hadn't heard them used this way before; she said, “Pole-rot.”  
  
Jack's eyes widened, and then he closed his fingers around Mei Ling's arm. “Now, listen. I haven't got any rot, especially not of the 'pole,' and you ought to know better. I'd give you a demonstration right now, but I'd really like to know how you came to know about it?”  
  
Mei Ling's expression softened, her eyes brightened. “No illness?”  
  
“None. Now tell me...” He stroked her cheek with his index finger, coaxing the information from her. “Where... did you ever hear such a thing?”  
  
“From the little dark one,” Mei Ling said, clearly searching her memory for a name. “The one Madam Chao calls 'little sister.' She tell us early this week... Madam Chao feel sad for you since you were so ill with pole-rot, and so she give you food and bed and help you.”  
  
“Little sister, was it?” Jack said, and concluded, with growing annoyance, that he was being toyed with. So Easter was spreading rumors that would effectively keep every fun-loving girl in Singapore far away from him. The only woman she couldn't keep away from him was Chao Quin, and he supposed Quin was next on her list. All this time he'd thought she had more or less given up, and she'd only been scheming. To make it sound as though Quin provided for him out of pity... not of his bad luck, but of his “rotten pole”? It was too much. Jack's lip curled back, and he realized that the lie, untrue as it was, still struck a nerve; he _was_ dependent on Quin, and more vulnerable than ever.  
  
“Darling, I've got to go,” he said to Mei Ling, as he saw Gibbs out of the corner of his eye, approaching the door. He kissed Mei Ling affectionately on the cheek and rose to catch up to Gibbs.  
  
“There ye are, Jack. Shall we be off?” Gibbs said jovially. He was always in a particularly light mood post-coitus.  
  
“As soon as possible, mate, and I don't mean just from here,” Jack muttered, scanning the dark shelves and racks by the door for his boots. They weren't there.  
  
“Aye? Ye're truly thinking of sailing off again?” Gibbs prompted, struggling into his own boots.  
  
“The sooner, the better,” Jack growled, leaning over to knock things aside in his search for his boots. He and Gibbs were the only ones there at this particular hour; there were not even any shoes that he could take in their place. His boots were decidedly absent, and Jack paused, remembering the look Easter had given him when she'd been there earlier; he put together Easter's recent pick-pocketing, the rumors, her eighteenth birthday... the girl was playing for him with all the cards she had. “I can't believe it,” Jack said to Gibbs, turning round in the entryway. “Brat took my bloody boots.”  
  
“Brat? Which brat?”  
  
“Quin's little understudy. Easter - I told you about her thievery, remember? Now it's my boots. I'm sure of it.”  
  
“Really? Why would she do that?”  
  
“Same reason she started those rumors, I'd wager,” Jack said.  
  
“Rumors?”  
  
“Apparently, I suffer from pole-rot,” Jack replied, seeing Gibbs' gray brows knit together in confusion, and then drop in sudden comprehension. Jack took one last look for his boots, feeling his anger settle into purpose. “She's out to vex me and make things difficult for me, as I made them for her. She's gone too far, now.”  
  
“The girl needs a good wallop,” Gibbs suggested.  
  
“Most assuredly,” Jack said, scanning the rough and filthy street with his eyes, not looking forward to picking his way along barefoot. “Don't go far, mate,” he said to Gibbs without really seeing him, “I've had the frequent thought that I'll not be much longer for this place.”  
  
“Aye,” Gibbs growled good-naturedly in return.  
  
As Jack walked - slowly, carefully, sidestepping God-knew-what and stepping painfully on rocks and bits of wood and the like - he planned what he would do to Easter once he got to Chao Quin's. It had to have been her to take his boots. Along the way, just before the turn onto the path to Queenie's, there was a low bamboo fence that reached his knees in height; recalling his disciplinary promise to the girl after the tea 'accident', he borrowed one of the poles and weighed it in his hand. He didn't fancy the thought of beating her; not _really_. But giving her a good scare - now that was just fine. Besides, he felt it unwise to go into battle completely unarmed, even with a woman. No; _especially_ with a woman.  
  
And if she didn't beg his forgiveness for her childish pranks, then he just might wallop her once or twice, right across her disobedient bottom. She'd smart for an hour or two, and it just might do her good. Eighteen or not.  
  
He entered and the main room was empty; perhaps she was hiding. But he knew her hiding places, too; he took an immediate left and entered the kitchen.  
  
She looked up from where she was lifting a clay bowl from near the hearth. Her robe tonight was a deep green, one that reminded him of distant ocean and pines, though it was shiny as a palm leaf, and clung invitingly to womanly curves. Thin, wispy black brows curved and rose above her wide, dark eyes; a few tendrils of black hair had escaped her bun and clung to her tan cheeks, damp with the humidity of the evening. Something else reminded him of trees and bamboo; oh, yes: she was _tall_. The top of her head would reach his chin were they to stand against each other face to face; Jack dismissed the image and met her surprised gaze.  
  
The stare he gave her in return was another one of his weapons: a glare equivalent to a pair of cannons emerging from the gunwales. Loaded threat.  
  
“Evening... Older B-brother,” she stammered in the island's tongue, forgetting in her guilt-ridden anxiety to provoke him by addressing him as 'uncle'.  
  
“Well, little one,” he said in English from the doorway. “You have been busy lately, hm?”  
  
“I don't know what you mean.”  
  
He took one purposeful step toward her, and then another. She held the bowl in front of her stomach, as though it were a shield. “I should say, certain _parts_ of you have been busy lately. Too busy. Specifically, your hands... and your tongue.” His own choice of words gave him pause, even as one of the parts in question came out to moisten her lips. Jack stopped directly in front of her. “There's some things need redressing. First, I want to know the location of my boots. Now.”  
  
“Oh!” she said, trying to smile. “It's the silliest thing! A man took them by mistake from the Lily House, he brought them here and I put them - “  
  
She broke off in a squeak as he caught her chin in his hand. “No, no, no,” he said with deadly calm. “No more lies. You're terrible at it, and besides, I'll deal with your tongue as the next matter of course. I asked you, _where are my goddamn boots_?”  
  
“In my room,” she said quietly, her lips barely moving.  
  
“Much better. Move,” he said, catching her around the shoulders and steering her out of the kitchen. He followed her silently down the hall to her chamber, telling himself he _wasn't_ following a woman to her bedroom, or at least, it didn't matter if he was. He passed her, giving himself a wide berth, when she stood aside to let him enter. He glanced around the room, ostensibly looking for the boots, but searching for his other missing items, as well. A bit of red protruded from beneath a pillow - one of his scarves, if he wasn't mistaken - but he said nothing as he continued to survey the room. He finally saw his boots in a corner, neatly set beside one another, visually confirmed they were whole, and then turned around to face her.  
  
She had drawn the thin curtain across the doorway, and was standing beside it, her eyes still animated, her lips slightly apart, and he thought he saw the faintest bit of pink in her cheeks. He realized, mentally kicking himself for stupidity, that this must have been the ploy all along; to lure him into her room, alone, at night. She still hadn't noticed what he held in his hand.  
  
“Where's Quin?” he asked, suddenly sensing the moisture in the air, the heat of the evening, the quiet and solitude of being alone with her, here, now, tonight.  
  
“A party at the tea house. She won't be back until very late,” Easter said, the words whispered on an almost seductive purr. Where had she learned _that_ , Jack wondered, and then realized it was how Queenie normally spoke. The innocent girl was imitating the accomplished temptress.  
  
“Then she's not here to protect you,” Jack replied in an equally seductive tone, although his held strong currents of warning. Easter misinterpreted those, and took a step toward him, a small smile turning up her full lips, thinking she'd won.  
  
Let her.  
  
Jack tucked the bamboo shaft behind his back, and took a backward step or two toward the mats piled with cushions, until he could seat himself upon them, a foot or two off the floor, his knees spread apart. “Come here,” he said, giving nothing away in the low command.  
  
She obeyed, seeming to glide across the floor toward him, breath quickening with anticipation. He thought of saying, _You've been a very naughty girl_ , but Easter would be too innocent to understand that game under any circumstances, or so he hoped. Let her think he would give her what she wanted - what she _thought_ she wanted, since the girl was certainly devoid of knowing what real seduction entailed, wasn't she? - and he would surprise her at the opportune moment. He thought about the smoky looks she'd cast at him from beneath lowered lashes; the slow sway of her hips. She seemed a woman, but he told himself he could never see her that way. Never know her.  
  
“Kneel,” was all he said.  
  
She looked a little taken aback. “Where?”  
  
“Here, between my knees,” he replied, waiting to see if she'd do it. When she reached the circle of his knees, she bent and knelt, smoothing her robe over her thighs and calves so it was tucked demurely beneath her.  
  
She was seated between his legs. Jack told himself it was only natural to feel a little bit of arousal... he was a man, and she was exotically beautiful and female and more or less grown, however much a pain in the neck; he reminded himself that his ultimate purpose was to teach her a lesson, however, and took a deep, steadying breath to quell any excitement.  
  
“Turn to the side,” he said, and she furrowed her brows but twisted her body as he asked, leaning over his leg. Her elbows rested on his left thigh, and so did the soft curves of her breasts, which sort of alarmed Jack as he remembered he'd touched one of them, before, in the opium house. They'd grown since.  
  
“The drawing in the book didn't look like this,” Easter said, turning her chin sideways to look up at him. Her dark eyes were tea-warm and both trusting and teasing at once. He felt the heat of her gaze in odd places; his chest, his gut. _The drawing in the book_... well, no. Naturally not.  
“I never did punish you for stealing that, either,” he mused aloud. “Whatever happened to that book?”  
  
“It's under the pillows,” she answered, another tiny smile drawing up the edges of her mouth.  
  
“ _Very_ naughty girl,” he remarked without thinking, and her satisfied smile and lifting of her chin sent another frisson of alarm through him; she couldn't know that sort of talk, she couldn't be tempted by it, she couldn't.  
  
“Do you want to look at it?” she asked, with the same curious, tantalizing gaze. “There are many interesting drawings... there's one I thought you might explain to me-“  
  
“No,” he said quickly, his throat feeling thick. He pressed on with his plan, reaching behind him to set down the piece of bamboo to free his hands. He reached down to tap the side of her thigh. “Up,” he said, and when she lifted her knees he reached down to gather the bottom of her robe in his hand. He pulled it rapidly off the floor, so that it bunched around her thighs together with her under-robe. His palm brushed bare thigh, and he stilled.  
  
He had planned it in his mind; he would hold her robe up with his left hand while he gave her a sound whack or two with the bamboo rod in his right. He would administer a child's punishment for her childish behavior, and then be on his way; he would not even look.  
  
Oh, but he wanted to look.  
  
That was what finally unnerved him completely - awareness of his own desire. He told himself it was wrong to look at her, she was too young, he'd known her too long... but the sorry truth was that she'd unfortunately become a woman. A young woman, but a woman, and one with designs on him. He thought he had the upper hand, preparing to spring the punishment on her, pretending to give in to her slipshod attempts to seduce him, and yet as he withdrew his palm from where it had rested on her soft thigh, radiant with heat, he was feeling remarkably seduced.  
  
The irony made him groan softly as he picked the bamboo rod behind his back and gripped it tight in his right hand. He closed his eyes, and willed himself to have control before he spoke. “Do you remember when you spilled the tea on me, darling?”  
  
“Yes,” she replied in a small voice. A little shame. That was good.  
  
“I promised you something, then. Do you remember what it was?”  
  
She shook her head a little, looking at him, her breath quickening, her pupils dilated with interest. Jack thought with amusement and a little pity that she was going to be very surprised. “Your just deserts,” he whispered, raising the rod about a foot away and then bringing it down, quickly, across her backside.  
  
Even though it was more of a warning tap, she cried out, flinching against his thigh, and turned a shocked look behind her to see what he'd hit her with. When she saw the bamboo her gaze turned murderously on his face.  
  
“That was for your thieving hands, and your lying tongue,” he said, realizing the incredible irony that _he_ , Jack Sparrow, was punishing a woman - _girl!_ \- for lying and stealing. Of course, it was the disobedience and betrayal he was really avenging. She'd think good and hard before spreading rumors or stealing something of _his_ again.  
  
Tears brimmed in her eyes, not from the pain, Jack surmised, but from the humiliating realization that he wasn't going to give in to her romantic fantasies at all, and wallop her instead. “Older Brother...” she began to plead.  
  
He brought down the rod again, harder this time, and a firm _crack_ echoed in the room. She cried out again, and he took a deep breath. He decided that was probably enough, since he didn't actually want to hurt her. “Never, ever tell lies about me to anyone, _especially_ not to people who know the truth - it only makes you look petty and foolish,” he said, wanting to make sure she knew that he'd found out about the rumors.  
  
Her head whipped around toward him again, and he saw fire in her eyes. He'd woken the dragon, now. “How do _I_ know they're not true, 'Uncle'?” she said in a near-hiss. “For all I know, your pole _could_ be rotted off.”  
  
Ah, she admitted it, the wretch. She'd slandered him in an attempt to win him for herself... he might have laughed if he weren't furious. “You'd love to find out for sure, wouldn't you?” he shot back, forgetting to be careful not to escalate their conflict into sexual play. “Will a single look suffice? Is that what you're aiming for, to see a man naked? Any man? Is this why you've been torturing the _hell out of me_?”  
  
His left hand had already gone to the fastenings of his breeches before he stopped himself, breathing hard, hearing her sigh and sniff, her arms still draped over his thigh. “Apologize,” he ordered. His hand returned to yank her robe up farther, exposing her bottom to the air. Still he didn't look. “Apologize or you'll be sorry every time you try to sit for the next fortnight.”  
  
She glared at him, a single tear running down her brown cheek. “No!”  
  
“ _No_?” Jack frowned at her, perplexed. “You'd prefer the beating?”  
  
“You won't really beat me.” More tears followed the first. Her breath caught on a hitch. “You were always kind to me, until _her_ ,” she nearly spat, and he knew she meant Chao Quin.  
  
“And you were a nice girl, until you decided to set your cap for me,” he said. “Learn to take 'no' for an answer.”  
  
“Older Sister says women must take what they want,” Easter said, the tears shaping her voice into a plea, “or else no one will give it to them!”  
  
She was probably right about that, Jack thought, but it was a side issue. “You can't have me, because I don't want you,” he said as soberly as he could, realizing even as the words left his lips that he was lying, though in the greater interest of what was right. “Now, apologize for your wagging tongue and sticky hands.”  
  
“No,” she retorted, and it was almost a growl.  
  
“Fine, be stubborn. It's your bottom, after all,” he said as a last offer of warning.  
  
“No! Go on and beat me then, 'Uncle'! Show, once and for all, what kind of man you really are.” She hurled the words at him, angry tears dripping from her chin.  
  
Jack's patience was at an end. He pressed his left hand beneath her stomach to lift her up, and then she was bent over his knee with her backside exposed. He extended his right arm, ready to strike a firm blow with the bamboo. Something made him pause. She gave a small sob, and then a sigh as her fingers dug into the fabric of his breeches. Foolish girl, he thought, to have fallen in love with him. She needed this lesson...  
  
As she waited for the blow, her left hand danced along his thigh, fingers clenching and unclenching. She didn't mean to draw a path to his loins, Jack thought, she _couldn't_ mean to, couldn't know... tentative fingers then brushed his swollen, painfully erect cock beneath his breeches, and his breath caught in a sudden, sharp hiss, his grip tightening on the bamboo.  
  
“Go on,” he heard her say, and the fire was back in her tear-reddened eyes as she looked over her shoulder at him. The tip of her finger was still tracing his shape, all the way up his length, and then down, and he nearly swore at the maddening pleasure of it, wondering where the hell she'd gotten that idea, if she'd read it in the damned book or heard people talking or seen girls at the brothel or _what_...  
  
“Easter, stop it,” he warned in a very low whisper, feeling a tremor in the hand of his that held the bamboo. He was afraid of what would happen if he put it down to fling her hand away from him; he was afraid of what would happen if he _didn't_.  
  
She looked at him curiously, intrigued, despite her tears. “No.”  
  
“I'll thrash you soundly.”  
  
“Go ahead.”  
  
“Easter...” he said through clenched teeth, willing himself to ignore the throbbing of his prick against her gentle hand, reminding himself that he had something he ought to do, he couldn't allow her to... but her touch was making him hot and cold at once, sending shivers along his spine all the while blood rushed to most inconvenient places... his hand itched, and he realized he had to put her hand off of him by force before this ended in disaster.  
  
He released the folds of fabric he'd been holding at her lower back with his left hand, and caught up her trouble-making hand with a hard squeeze. “Damn it, I told you to _stop that_.”  
  
“I thought you'd like it. And you _do_ like it,” she said, looking at his face. He squeezed his eyes shut, though she could probably read desire in his expression if she knew what it looked like.  
  
“I do not,” he said uselessly, holding fast to her hand as she pushed up and off his knee, turning to sit in front of him, facing him. The folds of her robe fell around her legs, and she was no longer in position to be walloped. “I'm not through with you,” he almost growled, forcing his eyes open. “You're getting the beating you deserve.”  
  
She reached for him with her other hand, then, and her touch was far less uncertain. Three fingers stroked the length of his cock inside his trousers, making it twitch violently. He swore.  
  
“Swearing's a sin, Sparrow,” Easter said imperiously, as if he needed reminding, continuing to trace her fingers over him.  
  
“You're going to regret this,” he said, and he no longer knew if he was talking to her or himself. He decided that he had to catch her other hand, too, and that meant putting down the bamboo. He relaxed his fingers to let it fall, telling himself he had to put a stop to this at _once_.  
  
But when it clattered to the floor, Easter heard it and looked, turning her eyes back to his with moist-eyed surprise. “I knew it,” she said, even as his hand closed firmly around her wrist, pulling her hand far away from his groin. “I knew you wouldn't beat me...” She raised herself on her knees, and fresh tears emerged from both eyes as Jack stared.  
  
He didn't know what she saw as she looked at him, but he could imagine, from the emotions warring for control within him. Anger, at his inability to do right by her, to turn the situation to his advantage. Lust, damnably, because she'd been trying to tempt him for two years and had finally succeeded, and his mind was racing toward what he could do with those hands, that mouth, that bottom and those awfully womanly thighs he'd exposed. Guilt, because Alberts had trusted him to take care of her, and here he was caught between beating her or bedding her, neither of which he had ever really intended to do.  
  
“I knew you wouldn't hurt me. I knew it,” she was still saying, and as he watched helplessly she suddenly sprang up, her hands still held tightly in his, and lifted her face toward him, saying, “I knew you loved me, I...” and then her warm lips were parting over his, and he could think of nothing but the sweet taste of her mouth as she kissed him fully.  
  
He wanted to give in and resist at once; he compromised by kissing her back but leaning back on the cushions to try to get away from her, since his hands were occupied, and she followed, landing on top of him without breaking the kiss. He released her hands and they shot up to rest on his face, and she turned her head to slant her mouth across his. When he swallowed her tears, salt water mixed with the almond sweetness of her, he groaned, because it reminded him of the sea and seemed to taste of redemption.  
  
Of its own accord, his hand lifted to press her lower back against him, and he was reminded of the incident in the opium den, except this time he was actually hard, and she was not so surprised as before. He indulged himself in returning the kiss, plunging inside to taste every recess of her mouth, meeting her inexperience with skilled tutelage, molding her lips to the shape he wanted, angling his head to one side and then the other to meet the need that burned inside of him, the same need that whispered to him to roll her onto her back and feel her underneath him, in the age-old and most satisfying way.  
  
And that was where he drew the line. That, he would not do.  
  
He lifted his hands and pulled her face up and away, their lips clinging as he did so. Her lovely eyes were heavy-lidded but did open to look down at him. “Enough,” he whispered.  
  
“What? Why?” she said, tongue coming out to moisten her lips. “I want more,” she added on a breathy plea.  
  
“No more; not from me. Not now. Not ever,” he said, and grasped her shoulders to push her upward. They both sat up on the mats, and he was a little pleased to see the disappointment on her face. Perhaps he hadn't lost his touch just yet, if could still make young women nearly swoon with desire. Still, it was immaterial. He moved over on the cushions, putting a few feet of space between them. She didn't move to follow, and it was a sign that she was starting to understand, or at least accept, his refusal. He eyed her warily as she tucked tendrils behind her ears, catching her breath. “Aren't you the least bit afraid of your mistress catching us?” he said.  
  
“Aren't _you_?” she retorted. “Did you think you'd frighten me off forever by taking up with her?”  
  
He tried to look taken aback, but after a moment, couldn't resist a grin. “Clever girl.”  
  
“Why do men always say that as though it's a complete shock? Pretty girl, stupid girl, not surprising in the least. But clever girl, and it's as though the world were upside down. Most of us _are_ clever. If you haven't noticed.”  
  
Jack blinked. Once again, it struck him that she was grown. The little girl he had loved, yes, loved, was gone. She didn't know he much he cared for her, because the truth was that he had hated himself far more, for everything that had happened. He wasn't the man he could have been to her. The father she needed. “'M sorry about Captain Alberts,” he finally said. He could probably count on one hand the number of times in his life he'd apologized to anyone in seriousness.  
  
“Thank you,” she said, furrowing her brows, clearly seeing no connection between her previous statement and his response. She thought for a moment before saying, “Did you think I blamed you?”  
  
He was silent as he stood, strolled across the room, and began to pick up objects from a nearby dressing table, setting them down one at a time. “Didn't you?” he asked without looking at her. “Everyone else did. Even me. Not without good reason.”  
  
“No,” she said, coming up behind him, just short of touching him. “Not really. I thought you might have blamed _me_. Your saving me got in the way of everything... what you might have done.”  
  
“Hm,” Jack said. He felt her fingers on his shoulders, resting gently at first, and then beginning to creep toward his chest. He reached up and caught her wrists, putting her hands away from him. “There's no use doing that, love. I'm not going to despoil you. For one thing, the last time I did something of the sort, I got shot. Twice.”  
  
He moved to walk around her, heading for the doorway, needing to extricate himself from the situation whether their conversation was over or not. His blood was still heated and he didn't have complete confidence in his own willpower. It hadn't served him particularly well in the past.  
  
“Where are you going?” she said, turning to follow after him.  
  
He decided to pretend it was a general question instead of a specific one, pausing in the doorway. “Don't know, exactly. A man can only go where life takes him.”  
  
“And a woman?” She approached him from behind. “What can a woman do?”  
  
He turned with a sigh, and tried to think of something wise, something brilliant. Not a bawdy joke, a clever pun, a snappy remark, but something deep and meaningful, like _Find a man to love you_ , or _Pursue happiness at all costs_ , but he didn't have a lot of faith in love or marriage, and happiness certainly seemed as elusive as ever. More than anything, he felt unqualified to give serious advice, to provide the guidance that she truly needed. He suddenly wished Alberts were there - the man would know what to say - but then the thought of Alberts witnessing the entire scene made him feel a bit nauseated. He reached out and cupped her face in his hand, sadly, brushing his thumb across her cheek. “Ask someone wiser than I am, or be wiser yourself,” he finally said. “That's the best I've got.”  
  
He once again turned to go, when she called after him.  
  
“Sparrow, you know I'm persistent. I'll only try again, or find someone else. You really wish me to find another man to 'despoil' me, as you said?”  
  
Jack cast a grin over his shoulder. “I can't stop you, if that's what you really want. But you'd better wait until I leave Singapore for good - or else you'd be putting the chosen man's health in grave danger.”  
  
“Of?”  
  
“Me.”  
  
She frowned. “That's not _fair_.”  
  
He considered. “Nope. But that's the way it is.”  
  
He took a step out into the hall, and she scurried after him, saying, “Wait. Wait!”  
  
“What now?”  
  
“Did you say... did you say you were leaving? For good?”  
  
“Probably. As soon as I can get a ship.”  
  
“Not tonight?”  
  
He smiled at the relief in her expression; even a single day seemed a long time to someone as young as she was. “No. Not tonight.”  
  
She nodded, and after giving him a look that was pleading and sad and regretful, she turned to go back into her room. He had turned on one foot, when he heard her call in a singsong voice, “Oh, Older Brother?”  
  
He rolled his eyes in frustration. Would she never desist? “Yes, little one?” he called back from his place in the hallway. He would not enter that room again.  
  
She re-emerged, smiling somewhat victoriously, carrying a dark bundle in her arms. She held it up. “Don't forget your boots.”  
  
He took them, noting that she had taken down her hair. It swung neatly back and forth behind her as she walked away, a dark curtain he had sworn never to draw back.  
  
  
He was still awake in Chao Quin's bedroom when she entered it late that night, not at all surprised to see him spread half-naked across the mats and cushions under a thin coverlet. Quin began to disrobe in the near-darkness, and finally sat and lay beside him with a deep sigh. She turned exhaustedly onto her stomach. When he stroked his knuckles down her bare back, she moaned low in her throat. “Don't touch me,” she said. “I am too tired to move.” He ground his erection against her bare hip by way of response. She sighed. “Didn't you hear me?”  
  
He answered then with his hand and fingertips in various places until he could sense a new steamy heat in the air, though her body hadn't moved much at all. As he rolled atop her, reaching up to tangle his hand in her long, thick, black, silky-fine hair, he murmured, “It's all right, darling. This time, you don't _have_ to move.”  
  
His hand stroked lightly over the backs of her thighs and the curve of her bottom in a meandering path as his mind wandered, too, as he had known it would. He closed his eyes very tight as he slid home, saying in a choked whisper, “In fact, you don't have to talk, either. Please... don't say a word.”  
  
  
* * * *


	3. Chapter 3

6\. Bamboo - Part Three  
  
“Hsst! Jack!”  
  
Jack's eyes opened, and he was staring at the ceiling of his cell again. He'd dozed, imagining he was back in Singapore. He turned his head, and in the heated afternoon light saw his old friend - for lack of a better term - Bootstrap Bill Turner, flattened against the wall, hissing at him from the shadows. “Jack! Wake up!”  
  
“I'm awake,” he said, folding an elbow neatly beneath him as he looked around. “Six in the evening already, eh? You needn't slink in the shadows, mate - there's no one about.”  
  
Bootstrap emerged from the corner where he'd been hiding, glancing nervously left and right. Jack saw that he carried a cloth-wrapped bundle in his hands. “I hope that's our passage out of here,” Jack remarked as Bootstrap approached the bars.  
  
“Yes, thanks to Elizabeth,” Bootstrap said somberly. “I still don't know how she came by them, or why on earth she'd risk her neck for you.”  
  
Jack gave an exaggerated grin, hiding in plain sight. “Same reason as you, I'd imagine - my charm is irresistible.”  
  
Bootstrap eyed him warily, and Jack wasn't at all sure he'd been fooled. “Yes - well. She said we'd better hurry, for the guard in that one spot only takes an hour for supper. But I don't understand, Jack - his being absent got me in, but I don't see how it's going to get us out.”  
  
“It's not,” Jack replied. “You are.”  
  
“I am?”  
  
Jack wrapped several brown fingers around the iron, regarding Bootstrap with a penetrating gaze. “That's right. You, and those two things, there,” he added, nodding toward the cloth bundle.  
  
Bootstrap frowned. “Honestly, Jack, I think your jail stay's addled your brains more than usual,” he said. “Even should we get you out of the cell, and dress ourselves up like bits of red, it's not as if they're going to let us just _walk_ out of here. No one in his right mind will mistake the two of _us_ for his Majesty's men.”  
  
Jack smiled proudly, as though sunbeams were already shining on his very own set of brass buttons. “Well, they won't be looking too closely, will they, when the whole bloody place's on fire?'  
  
  
* * * *  
  
  
  
Elizabeth delicately separated a piece of fish from the bone and impaled it on her fork, wondering how she was going to swallow it with her entire stomach tying itself in knots and threatening to mutiny before she'd even gotten the fish inside.  
  
She ought to have been happy and relaxed. It was just before seven on a lovely, clear evening, and she was having a charming dinner with her father and Will. The dining room had been well-aired and lavishly set. She wore an elegant evening dress that ought to have made her feel more herself and yet it felt strange on her body; she could not even determine the precise color. The material seemed to change from a passionate red to a deep rose across the bends and folds.   
  
Nonetheless, everything was going more or less according to plan. She had no call to be nervous, she had done what she could, after all, and a little concern for her friend Jack - all right, perhaps 'friend' was a misnomer - was natural, but this degree of obsessive nerve-wracking was completely unnecessary.  
  
It was only an escape, she reminded herself. Jack had escaped from worse, and recently, too. Surely it would be fine.  
  
“Elizabeth?” she heard her father saying in a rather loud voice.   
  
“Yes?” The fish quivered on her fork as she held it in midair.  
  
Her father nodded toward her upraised utensil. “Something wrong with your supper, my dear? You're staring at that fish as if you're expecting it to come to life and leap off your plate. Strike you with its fins, or something.” He gave a restrained, good-natured chuckle.  
  
“Don't be silly,” she said with a forced smile, her eyes meeting Will's across the table as they remembered encounters with plenty of perilous seafood from the _Dutchman_. Will knew some about tonight; she'd told him that Jack was planning an escape that evening, but Jack had not told her the details, and he'd sworn her to secrecy regarding Bootstrap's involvement. She suspected strongly that it was because Bootstrap wouldn't be returning afterward, but would escape Port Royal along with Jack. It would be the natural course of action as his direct accomplice. She tried to remember her father's question... “Have no fear, Father, the sparrow's fine. Delicious, in fact.” She popped the bit of flesh into her mouth, noting Will's lifted brow and her father's odd look. She mentally repeated her words, rapidly amending, “The fish, I mean. Fish is what I meant to say, of course.”  
  
“Hm, well,” Weatherby answered, exchanging concerned glances with Will. “Eat up, my dear, as you'll need your strength tomorrow.”  
  
“Tomorrow? What's tomorrow?” she echoed, making sure not to let too long a pause go by while she speared another piece of fish, still a little horrified over her zoological gaffe. Will would understand, she reminded herself - even after everything, he'd have been willing to help them forestall Jack's hanging. Surely he would understand her preoccupation. She looked up to see her father gaping at her, aghast, and Will also, his lids narrowed in a sort of saddened confusion. “What's the matter?”  
  
“The _wedding_ , Elizabeth,” her father said, sounding incredulous.  
  
Oh, yes. The wedding was tomorrow. _That's_ why Will was looking at her as though she'd sprouted tentacles from her chin. Their little church wedding, a simple ceremony before family and God. She snatched up her napkin and patted her chin and lips with it. She cleared her throat. “Well of _course_ , the wedding, I meant what else? I meant, what is there to be concerned over?”  
  
Strangers she could have fooled, but not Will and her father; or at least, not Will.   
  
“You must forgive my daughter, William, I'm told women suffer from all sorts of nerves before these sorts of things,” Weatherby said placatingly, as Danks, an aged footman, cleared his plate.  
  
“What 'sorts of things' are those?” Will said pointedly, never taking his eyes from Elizabeth. She met his gaze apologetically.  
  
_Weddings. Partings. Hangings_ , she thought, though she was silent. She'd talk to Will after supper, perhaps explain that her obvious trepidation had nothing to do with her feelings for him.  
  
The clock in the hall struck seven, with a series of chimes. Almost simultaneously, there was a knock at the door, and Elizabeth straightened, catching Will's eye again.  
  
“Who's that, at the dinner hour, I wonder?” said Weatherby, as the footman turned to shuffle toward the corridor that would take him to the front door.  
  
“Message for the governor!” came a muffled shout. “Urgent! Open the door!”  
  
Weatherby's chair scraped the floor as he rose rapidly, followed by Will and Elizabeth. The three of them left the dining room and headed for the foyer; they arrived just as it was opened, and a young man in a red uniform burst in, with floridly red cheeks to match. He was out of breath; clearly he'd been ordered to deliver the message post-haste.  
  
“Governor Swann?” the young man said, a little too loudly.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“I bring news from Lieutenant Danslow at the fort.”  
  
“Yes? Well? What's the matter?”  
  
“There's two matters, sir, and the first Lieutenant Danslow wanted me to ask your forgiveness for not alerting you sooner, but it didn't seem important.” The young man seemed to gasp for air, his eyes bulging slightly. “Pardon me... I'm a bit...”  
  
“Danks, get this young man some brandy,” Weatherby said to the footman, who shuffled off. “The news, then?”  
  
“The first bit of news is that this morning, two of our men were found tied up in a warehouse near the fort. Their uniforms were gone.”  
  
“How odd,” Weatherby said.   
  
Elizabeth, who felt the heat of Will's gaze upon her, refused to meet it; she looked at the clock, the walls, the floor, anywhere else.  
  
“Odd, but not of great concern to the Lieutenant, as they was - I mean, they reeked of drink, sir, and so it was thought that they'd been gambling or such, ran afoul of a wager or the like. No cause for alarm, until this evening.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
Danks arrived with the brandy on a tray, and the young man took it, gulping a grateful swallow. “The urgent news now, Governor, is that there's a fire at the fort!”  
  
This time Elizabeth did catch Will's look, and both of their expressions were filled with concern.  
  
“Heavens! Is it serious?”  
  
“Seems so, sir.”   
  
“How serious can it be,” Elizabeth put in, causing all three men's heads to turn toward her. “Isn't the fort made of stone?”  
  
“Only the outside and some of the walls are made of stone, Elizabeth,” the governor said plainly.  
  
“It seemed to spread quick, almost like it started in several places at once,” the young man said before taking another gulp of brandy.  
  
“Or was set,” Will whispered to Elizabeth. “Is _this_ the plan?”  
  
“I wish I knew,” she whispered back.   
  
“Does the Lieutenant believe we're under attack?” the governor asked. “Enemy ships on the horizon?”  
  
“No, sir,” responded the young man. “If we're under attack, it's not by sea.”  
  
“Evacuate the fort, then,” the governor said. “If we're not under attack, get our men out.”  
  
“That's what the Lieutenant hoped you'd say, sir, as he already ordered it. But there's quite a bit of confusion - we've got hundreds of men in there. Not counting the prisoners.”  
  
“The pris-” Weatherby broke off, turning to look at Will and Elizabeth, who took few pains to hide their stricken expressions. “I'm not even going to ask if you had anything to do with this. I don't want to know the answer.” He flattened a palm against his forehead, and patted his wig nervously. Then, to Danks he said, “Have the coach brought around at once. I'm going down there.” He faced Will and Elizabeth. “Stay here,” he said, slowly, as though they both were unlikely to understand the words.   
  
They were, of course, unlikely to obey. As soon as he'd left the room, Will turned to Elizabeth. “It must be Jack's doing.”  
  
“I... I don't know if it is. What if it's an accident? Set fire to a place you're locked in? That's... madness!”  
  
Will lifted an eyebrow.   
  
Elizabeth sighed in resigned frustration. “All right - so let's assume this _was_ Jack's plan. Turn everything upside-down at the fort and escape in the confusion. It might work. But we ought to just make sure he's gotten out.”  
  
“Why were there _two_ uniforms?” Will asked.  
  
“I don't know what you mean.”  
  
Will rolled his eyes, before turning around slowly. His shoulders seemed to suddenly tense, and then he abruptly landed his palm with a _smack_ on the end of the banister. Elizabeth jumped. He was glaring at her. “Oh, _come_ on, Elizabeth. I know damn well you're behind the uniforms. That's what all that sneaky business was about last night.” He tilted his head as if another piece had fallen into place. “You... and Anita.”  
  
Elizabeth swallowed. “It couldn't be helped. I was sworn to secrecy.”  
  
“Even from _me_?”  
  
“Even from you.”  
  
“I'm your husband!”  
  
“Not for another twelve hours, you're not,” she snapped, and then wished she'd bitten her tongue. At his shocked look, she retreated. “Will, I only meant...”  
  
“Never mind,” he said in a low voice, still glaring at her. “I'd like you to answer my question. Why two uniforms? Who's wearing the other one? Someone's escaping with him?”  
  
Elizabeth shook her head, slowly. Will would be crushed if he knew his father meant to leave... to throw away his pardon and embrace piracy again. He would find out eventually, but he couldn't know she'd been complicit in it. “I don't know,” she repeated. “Another prisoner?”  
  
“Earlier you said Jack was alone in the jail. Suddenly he has company?”  
  
“I don't know.”  
  
“Elizabeth, you're lying,” Will said, taking two purposeful steps toward her. “And you know I hate it when you lie to me.”  
  
“I'm _not_ lying, I really don't know any-”  
  
“You really think I can't tell?” Will said, staring down at her. She always forgot how tall he was when he drew himself up to his full height. “You can fool anyone, is that it? Who do you think you are? _Him_?”  
  
“Will, _please_!” She sighed, reaching for his collar, curling her thumbs inside, smoothing the hair at his nape with her fingers. “Don't be angry. I was only trying to help in a small way. He's... our friend.”  
  
“He is _not_ our 'friend,'” Will said dryly, nonetheless somewhat calmer. “All right. I'll ask you once more if you know who the other uniform is for. I want to know if it's... by chance, I... you didn't happen to see my father today?”  
  
Elizabeth closed her eyes, drawing on every muscle she'd trained to make her face impassive, her voice steady. She hated the idea of lying to Will, and yet she couldn't seem to help it. “No, not today. Why?”  
  
Will's head fell forward a bit. “I just have a feeling.” In a moment he stepped back, turning away. “I'm going into town. I want to see if my father's where I left him.”  
  
“I'll go with you,” Elizabeth insisted, as she heard the clatter of the coach's wheels on the drive. Her father was departing.  
  
Will didn't argue. He took his hat from the rack, and opened the door. As they stepped outside, they could see the smoke rising in a column from the fort. “I _do_ hope this was part of the plan,” Elizabeth mused aloud. “It does make me wonder.”  
  
Will glanced at her from the side. “It makes _me_ wonder what Jack will look like in that uniform.”  
  
* * * *  
  
  
“We look ridiculous,” Bootstrap announced, as he and Jack examined their stretched reflections in the bottom of a polished tea tray they'd found in the lieutenant's office.  
  
“I think we look rather dashing,” Jack said as he tugged down the red wool over the white breeches. The one Bootstrap had on didn't quite fit him, and he had to leave several buttons undone around the middle. It was half-past six and they'd successfully completed the first part of the escape, which was the easiest; getting Jack out of his cell. After a fruitless search for Prince, who Jack rather thought might not be the same dog he'd seen there before, Jack remembered that Will had shown him how to lift the bars free with the right leverage. Bootstrap employed the bench Elizabeth had been sitting on, earlier, and the bars came off. Getting them back on was the tricky part - if anyone happened by, they didn't want the alarm sounded just yet. Then they'd snuck into the officer's study - mercifully empty - to make their change. Jack stripped off his bandanna and used it to tie his hair into the semblance of a queue, not that it would ever look quite proper.  
  
A low, scraping rumble came from somewhere outside. “What's that noise?” Bootstrap asked, with another futile tug at the uniform jacket.  
  
Jack eyed his own reflection in the silver and said drolly, “Generations of servicemen, simultaneously rolling in their graves.”  
  
Bootstrap went to the window to peer out. “They're raising the east gate. We can get out that way, after all.”  
  
“Goodie,” Jack said, tossing the tea tray aside. “Well, William, are you ready for a trial by fire?”  
  
“As ready as ever, I 'spose,” he grumbled.  
  
“Let's find us a flame, then,” Jack replied, and the two men crossed the room to peer cautiously out the door. A single soldier passed; then, no one. Bootstrap moved to exit, but Jack caught his shoulder. “Just so we're clear - if either of us falls behind, or is captured, the other shall keep to the Code. Get to the ship - the _Pearl_ 's anchored just south of the fort, behind the cliffs.”  
  
Bootstrap nodded once, somberly. “I wouldn't expect any less from ye, Jack.”  
  
They walked down the hallway, in search of a lantern. It was still light outside, and so there were not many lit; it wasn't until they came to a particularly dark corner that they found not a lantern, but a sconce, lit, upon the wall.  
  
“Try to pry out one of those candles, there,” Jack said to Bootstrap. “You're taller - you can reach more easily.”  
  
Bootstrap scoffed at the idea. “You're the one with the nimble fingers.”  
  
“Yours are more toughened these days - less likely to be burned. I was almost roasted alive once - it's not an experience I'd care to repeat.”  
  
“Try a living death underwater, instead!”  
  
“Goddammit, Bill,” Jack growled, reaching up to catch hold of the candle. He tugged, but it was firmly stuck in its frame. The wax had melted and sealed it in place. “A little help?”  
  
Bootstrap reached up and grasped the candle below Jack, and the two of them lifted and pulled with all their might, to no avail. He let go. “It's stuck.”  
  
“Try again!” Jack hissed. “We haven't got forever and a day. _Pull_! It's only a damned candle!”   
  
Both men wrapped their hands around the candle and pried with all their strength. Jack placed a shoe on the wall to get better leverage; Bootstrap bent one knee and straightened the other, behind him. They pulled with renewed effort. With a _snap_ the entire sconce suddenly flew off the wall, and Jack and Bootstrap tumbled to the floor, still clutching the lit candle.   
  
Jack recovered first, straightening and lifting the sconce with two fingers while tilting his head to peer curiously through its iron latticework at the prostrate Bootstrap. “Never would have expected _that_.”  
  
Bootstrap lifted his head. “Whole place is ready to fall apart.”  
  
“Seems that way.”  
  
At Jack's urging, they made their way back to the office, making sure no one was about. They slipped inside.  
  
“We'll start here, I think,” Jack said, trailing his fingers over the desk that he supposed once belonged to James Norrington. He wondered where the man might be, if he were still alive; after the Beckett fiasco he'd been reassigned to part of the fleet in Asia. Probably for the best, too, since the Commodore probably wouldn't much appreciate the irony of Jack in his office, touching his things. Planning to burn them, in fact.  
  
“We'll use the rum we found to spread it, I suppose?” Bootstrap said morosely.  
  
“Aye,” said Jack. “No - wait.” He scooped up a bottle and took a long swig, and then held it out to Bootstrap. “All right, off we go.”  
  
They doused the furniture with the alcohol, and Jack lowered the candle from the sconce, setting the blaze. He broke off a chair leg to use as a torch, and they made their way out, flames leaping in their wake.  
  
They left a path of destruction as they made their way through the outer, less heavily guarded parts of the fort; they found lanterns and broke them for the oil, they came across a stash of powder waiting to be taken to the armory and poured some out in a fuse-trail before lighting it - the resounding _boom_ was soon followed by the sounding of the alarm. From where Jack and Bootstrap were hiding, overlooking the courtyard, they could see smoke pouring from various windows and corridors. At the ringing of the bell, men began to shout orders, and other men rushed to follow them. The sun was setting, and the glow of flame began to appear in windows and open spaces.  
  
They were planning to wait for the order to evacuate, and slip out in the crowd. Suddenly, an officer spied them standing idle. “Hey! You two! To your stations!” he called.  
  
“Aye, sir,” Jack called back, walking backward into the shadows. “Come along, William. Our disguises are awfully thin.”  
  
  
* * * *  
  
  
Will threw open the door to the pair of humble rooms he kept behind the smithy. A single, thorough look confirmed they were empty. “He's not here,” he said, turning to Elizabeth.   
  
“Perhaps he's just gone out,” Elizabeth said, not wanting to alarm Will any farther.  
  
“Oh, _right_ ,” Will said, turning and shutting the door behind him. “I'm certain he's just gone to buy a loaf of bread.” His glare underscored the sarcasm, and he marched past Elizabeth. “I knew his promises to stay were too good to be true. Never trust a pirate,” he muttered, almost to himself.  
  
“Sound advice,” Elizabeth agreed, following him down the path. “But if he's gone to help Jack, that means the _Pearl_ must have come back. And it's not as if they can stroll through town - they would have to have anchored near the fort. We might see them, if we went down, and then we'd know they were all right, wouldn't we?”  
  
Will kept walking, although he slowed his pace to allow Elizabeth to catch up. “I'm going down to the fort. But not for Jack. If I see my father, I intend to stop him from making a huge mistake.”  
  
“What's that?”  
  
“Betting the rest of his life on Jack Sparrow.”  
  
  
* * * *  
  
“Don't remember setting this one,” Jack said as he and Bootstrap stumbled into a smoke-filled storeroom. “Do you suppose it caught on its own?”  
  
“There's a lot of fire, now, Jack,” Bootstrap said, covering his mouth with the top of the shirt he'd stuffed under the uniform. “Suppose it's spreading. That's what fire does.”  
  
“Well, this obviously _isn't_ the way to the east gate,” Jack concluded, coughing a bit. “Let's be gone.”  
  
They took off down the corridor, and found a set of steps. “Up or down?” Bootstrap asked Jack.  
  
“Well, down would seem to take us closer to the ground, and our exit, wouldn't it?”  
  
“I don't know,” Bootstrap said, and stopped to cough, as the corridor became more filled with smoke. “We can't... stay here.”  
  
Jack peered at the staircase in the thickening smoke, trying to tell if any part of it were on fire. He wiggled the wooden railing - it was rather old, and weak. “Up can't be good,” Jack concluded. “Let's try down.”  
  
Bootstrap led the way, and they began to climb down the rickety wooden steps that curved in a spiral inside one of the fort's stone towers. Jack heard one of the steps creak and groan under Bootstrap's weight, but they pressed on. The stairwell was filled with echoing noises: the alarm bell from the tower, the shouts of men from outside, and their own breathing. Both men noticed that it began to get hotter and smokier as they descended.   
  
Bootstrap coughed again, violently. “Ever feel like... you may be going to Hell?”  
  
Jack grinned beneath the scarf he was pressing to his face. “All the time, mate,” he answered before really considering the question. Any number of debaucheries of his past might have entered his mind at that moment, and yet, it was Elizabeth's naked skin pressed against his that leapt like flame, her low scream sweet in his mouth, only the futility of it bitter and acrid as brimstone.   
  
Jack was a bit distracted by his thoughts as he landed on the step that had protested Bootstrap's weight a second before, and he heard a snapping sound. He realized, a second too late, that the wood was giving way beneath him. “Bill!” he hissed as he felt it break; he fell through, feet first, clutching at the wood on either side, his hands slipping. “William! Help me!”  
  
He heard Bootstrap coughing, unaware of Jack's plight. Through the smoke and haze, he watched Bootstrap's head disappear from his line of sight, just before Jack's hands lost their grip and he plummeted through empty air.  
  
* * * *  
  
  
“Look! Down there,” Will said, pointing down to the water from where he and Elizabeth crouched behind the cover of a stone wall, to where a black sail flapped, almost hidden behind a rocky outcropping. “They're waiting.”  
  
She saw the faintest shadow of the black sail in the setting sun, and felt something tighten inside of her, as though it were connected to that sail. It was nigh invisible unless one knew where to look. Jack would be on that ship, tonight. He and Bootstrap would sail away, leaving behind all of this.   
  
Bootstrap would miss their small, simple wedding. She hoped Will wouldn't be too upset. It wasn't as if it were the first life event of Will's he would fail to witness. Still, she knew it would hurt him, and she wished she could ease that pain, somehow. As Will straightened and turned to face her, she moved her eyes over his handsome features, wishing desperately that she could make him happy simply by wishing it were so.  
  
“We'll watch for them to come down this way,” Will said, his eyes scanning the fort walls, the paths leading to and from it. “I'll talk him out of it.”  
  
“Will,” Elizabeth said, slowly, as though talking to a child, “even if you do, they might realize there was an accomplice. He could be arrested. You know my father's influence in the courts is nothing like what it was.”  
  
Will's eyes found hers. “Are you saying it would be better to let him go? To let him waste his life, when he's only just got it back?”  
  
“Your father chose piracy a long time ago. Is that so terrible?”  
  
“Things are _different_ now.”  
  
Elizabeth had no answer for Will, and so she joined him in watching the soldiers stream out of the gate. The light was fading as they spoke; dim twilight crept across the sea and the open expanse where men were running back and forth with buckets and barrels of water. It was of little use; flames leapt from the barred windows even on the upper levels, and smoke billowed from behind the ramparts. Over the confusion Lieutenant Danslow shouted orders, Elizabeth's father at his side. They stood a good distance from Will and Elizabeth, near a copse of trees on the west side of the fort.  
  
“We'll wait for them to come out,” Will said with iron determination.  
  
“How do we know they haven't already?”  
  
“The _Pearl_ would set sail, don't you think?”  
  
“Perhaps they're waiting for the cover of night.”  
  
Will turned his eyes back to her with an evaluating look. “You certainly seem to know a lot about it.”  
  
“I _was_ a fine pirate. Have you forgotten?”  
  
“No, and I never shall,” he answered. She was about to ask him whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, when he suddenly pointed, and said, “Look.”  
  
Elizabeth followed his gesture. A man with long gray hair and an ill-fitting uniform was peeling away from the crowd of men in red; he walked calmly in their direction, casting furtive glances over his shoulder. Suddenly he ducked behind a tree, where he stripped off the red jacket and left it. They watched him emerge again, heading toward the cliffs. Will pushed Elizabeth behind the wall and they hid, waiting for the man to pass them.  
  
Elizabeth was not concerned about Bootstrap seeing them. She was concerned that he was alone.  
  
Just as he was passing their hiding place, Will stood and blocked his path. Bootstrap's jaw dropped in surprise. “Will,” he said. “I didn't expect to see you here.”  
  
“I'll bet you didn't,” Will retorted. “You were going to leave this way? Without even saying goodbye?”  
  
Bootstrap's face softened. “I'm sorry, my boy, I thought it'd be easier.” Elizabeth approached, then, and when Bootstrap saw her, he looked doubly surprised. Even, perhaps, a bit guilty. “Why, Miss Swann. Didn't think I'd be seeing you again so soon, either.”  
  
“Soon?” echoed Will. “When _did_ you last see her?”  
  
Before Elizabeth could interject, Bootstrap had replied, “Well, late this afternoon. It was her idea to go in while the one fellow was off at supper. It worked rather nicely, too... it was after that, things got strange.”  
  
Elizabeth turned wide eyes upon Will, who narrowed his in response. “Will...”  
  
“You _knew_. You knew all the while,” Will said, with an unyielding, bitter stare. “I can't believe you.”  
  
“Will, we can discuss the matter later,” she said through clenched front teeth, turning back to Bootstrap. “Where's Jack?”  
  
“Well... it was the damnedest thing. We were coming down a set of steps on the east side-“  
  
“The east steps?” Elizabeth repeated. “Those haven't been used in years. They're falling apart.”  
  
Bootstrap knitted his brows. “Yes. Well I'm glad _someone_ knew that - perhaps you would have been a better guide, in there.”  
  
“Directly aiding a fugitive's escape would have greatly risked Elizabeth's life and reputation,” Will said angrily. “She's done quite enough as it is.”  
  
“What _happened_?” Elizabeth asked, ignoring Will's annoyance for the moment. “Where is he?”  
  
“I don't know,” Bootstrap confessed. “I looked, and looked, and couldn't find him. Thought maybe he'd find his own way out to the ship, and I'd see him there.” Bootstrap looked out over the water, down to the cliffs where the _Pearl_ sat. “I tried to find him, but there was so much smoke... he was behind me, one minute, on the stairs, the next - gone.” He shook his head. “I didn't know what else to do.”  
  
“Well, we've got to find him,” Elizabeth said, as though it were a matter of course.  
  
Bootstrap regarded her sadly. “Now listen, Miss Swann, Jack was very clear on one thing. He said that if a man fell behind - either one of us - we was to keep to the Code, and no mistake.”  
  
“The Code is merely a guideline,” she said through tightened lips.  
  
“We can't go back in after 'im,” Bootstrap said somberly. “Either he'll make it out on his own, or he won't. I'll not let either of ye risk your necks on his account. He wouldn't want it. Especially not with yer wedding vows to be said in the morning.”  
  
“ _Wedding_ vows,” Elizabeth repeated, incredulous.  
  
“Suppose those are mere guidelines, too?” This from Will. Something had struck a bitter nerve in him, and Elizabeth stared at him in dumbfounded frustration. She would ask him what he meant by _that_ , later.   
  
She took a breath. “Wedding or not-“  
  
“Now there's a 'not'?”  
  
“Will, _please_. I was only saying, we can't stand idly by and do nothing. What if he's hurt, or needs help or... he got lost, or something? Do you honestly mean to stand around here and do _nothing_?”  
  
Bootstrap sighed. “No, I don't. I mean to get to the ship, as Jack said, and hope for the best. If you'll excuse me.” He looked at Will sadly. “Son, do get out of my way.”  
  
“I won't let you do this,” Will said, and Bootstrap looked even sadder as he moved to walk around him.  
  
“Aren't you listening,” Elizabeth called after them. “Jack needs our help!”  
  
“Will, can't we say farewell like men?” Bootstrap, having realized Will would follow him, sighed, and moved toward the cliffs, Will in pursuit.  
  
“Sneaking off in the night isn't how men say goodbye,” Will called after him.  
  
“Pirate,” replied Bootstrap, sadly.  
  
  
* * * *  
  
  
With a firm kick directly in the center, the thin iron grate flew out and onto the rocks, and Jack emerged from the tunnel. He breathed in the sea air, gratefully. He was lucky to be alive.  
  
He'd awoken in a pile of rotted wood; it was remarkable that he'd awoken at all, considering the amount of smoke in the air. He'd fallen through several flights of steps and landed in what had to have been a storage cellar, though it hadn't been used in decades. He'd yelled for help, but none came; he supposed even if someone heard him, they were probably busy running the other way.  
  
He was none the worse for wear - another small miracle - and he felt his way in the darkness to a wall. In the distance he heard a noise, a familiar noise, and it was the crash of waves against rocks. In one place cool air rushed into the hot, cramped cellar; Jack surmised it was a tunnel, perhaps built for escape in an emergency, and he'd gratefully thought: _if this isn't an emergency, what is, eh?  
  
_ He had crawled inside and made his way about fifty yards to where the tunnel emerged from the fort's walls, above some large boulders, before kicking out the grate.  
  
Night was falling; the moon had risen above the sea, and Jack searched his surroundings until his eyes found what he sought; the _Pearl_ , well-hidden (he made a mental note to thank Gibbs) and ready to sail. He glanced up to see he was only ten feet or so below the edge of the cliff, and numerous rocks provided convenient hand- and foot-holds. He ought to at least take a look for Bootstrap. He hoped the man hadn't perished in a fruitless search for _him_. That would have been most ironic.  
  
Jack pulled himself up, flattening his elbows on the level of the ground, observing the spectacle. They'd certainly set cock-a-hoop, they had; soldiers scrambled like red ants, and there was a crunching sound as something inside the fort collapsed. Probably those damned steps, Jack thought. He spied Weatherby Swann in the distance, talking animatedly to an officer, and then his eye turned to two figures heading almost directly for him.  
  
He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw one was Bootstrap. Minus the lobster suit, and much better for it, Jack observed. The other seemed to be Will Turner. They were arguing, and their shouts soon became audible.  
  
“I risked my life for you,” Will was saying, a few steps behind his father. “So you could enjoy the rest of your days.”  
  
“I never asked you to do that, Will,” Bootstrap answered without turning around. “And I plan to enjoy my life. I'll be free, doing what I love. What more can a man want?”  
  
“What about a little gratitude?”  
  
“I never meant to seem ungrateful.”  
  
Jack had pulled himself up by this time, and stood with arms folded at the grassy edge of the cliff, waiting to be noticed. He was quite practiced at it - he spent a lot of time waiting for someone to see him in the proper pose. He rather liked to make a grand impression.  
  
“And another thing, Will,” Bootstrap was saying. “I may be an old fool, but there's certain mistakes I never made. One of 'em's trying to keep hold o' something that'll never really be yours.”  
  
“What are you talking about?” Will said, finally catching up to his father. “Do you mean Elizabeth?”  
  
At that moment, Bootstrap's mouth already open to reply, he saw Jack, and his features melted into a smile that seemed to say, _Speak o' the devil_. “Well, Jack, ye made it,” he said, striding up to clap him on the arm. “I knew you would.”  
  
“Dear William - and I don't mean _you_ ,” Jack said to Bootstrap with a lift of his chin toward Will, “it is time for us to be going. Let us make our goodbyes short.”  
  
“My father's an old hand at that,” Will snapped. “Thanks to you.”  
  
“Goodbyes ought to be short. Mainly because they're often not for as long as people often think.” Jack smiled, as genuinely as he could. “Cheer up, lad, you're not losing a father, you're gaining a bride! By this time tomorrow, you'll be duly swived. Er - wived... wedded, at least.”  
  
“He's right, Will,” Bootstrap added. “Don't listen to me. A lovely wedding to you both, and we'll meet again sometime.”  
  
Will's lips compressed into a hard line. “Is that all?”  
  
“Yes, my dear boy, I think that about does it,” Jack replied. “Do give my regards to the bride-to-be.”  
  
“She'll probably want to watch the ship sail,” Will said, turning back over his shoulder. “You ought to wave to her - I think she was concerned you hadn't got out.”  
  
“Where is she?” Jack said, casting his eyes over the expansive scene, knowing his gaze would find her immediately, if she were there. It always did.  
  
Will shaded his eyes against the glow of flame that now lit the fort. “You know - I don't see her.”  
  
“Where _was_ she, I suppose is more pertinent?”  
  
“Right by that wall,” Will said, frowning and pointing to where they'd been standing.   
  
In the place he pointed out was nothing but waving grass and empty stone.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
_Click “Next Entry” for Bamboo, Part Four._  
  
  
  
6\. Bamboo - Part Four  
  
There was a hidden door at ground level on the north side of the fort. It was this door Elizabeth had used when she'd entered to find Beckett, though that seemed an age ago; it was set in a corner, between a tower and a wall, and she'd discovered it years ago when she watched James Norrington go through it, while she was hidden behind a nearby tree. She hadn't followed, even though at fourteen she'd been very curious about the workings of the military outpost.   
  
She stood at the door, and ran her palm along its edge. It was no small thing, to go through that door. Will would miss her; he might guess she'd gone in. She would have to face that, when she came out. _If_ she came out. It was a strange thing to realize that she had a choice. She had thought her life steered by others for so long. She had thought it a God-given path, long ago, and then later, her father's guidance, and then Will's love. She'd found her own way before - with the pirates, desperate acts for desperate times - but never really thought herself master, or mistress, of what should happen to her. That was precisely it. Things happened _to_ her. And yet, opening that door would mean she was making something happen. For the first time she felt the weight of both sides on her shoulders. There was the weight of Jack calling to her, the irrational fear that he should come to harm. She couldn't bear that again. She felt the other weight, too - her father, Will, her deep care for him and her long-held dream of being his wife.   
  
But it had just been made abundantly clear that she, alone, cared enough for Jack to try to help him, to try to save him, and she knew with a heavy, guilty thrill that it was because they'd become lovers. Everything had changed in the last week, everything had been turned upside down, since she'd known Jack. It was wrong, it was sinful, it was terrible and wicked. Her regrets would not serve her, however. They might spill out to the sea, unwinding like a lengthy scroll, but they would not save Jack. The thought of him trapped inside - hurt, in danger - turned her stomach and stole her breath. _No_.  
  
She grasped the door's handle and yanked it open, with only a cursory glance to see if anyone was watching. After all, there was no time to waste. Jack was still in there.  
  
The door led to a dark, narrow stone stair, and out to a side corridor. It was how she'd snuck in Bootstrap, earlier, although they had needed to wait until the guard patrolling the corridor took his supper, the guard no one replaced. It wasn't the most disciplined of operations, really. Danslow was not James Norrington. Then again, no one was.  
  
She gave only a passing thought to him as she ascended the steps, immediately assailed with smoke. She stopped, a hand to her mouth, realizing that it would be very difficult to breathe; she bent down, and with a fierce tug, tore a stretch of cloth from her skirt, which she then held over her mouth and nose.   
  
She hadn't felt this kind of determined exhilaration since she'd faced men in battle weeks before; she'd forgotten its lure, its pulsing strength. She thought some, but mostly she felt. That was Jack, she concluded, climbing the steps in haste. He made her feel. Fury, disgust, despair, ecstasy. As she reached the top of the stairs and threw her weight against the inner door, knowing she was about to experience Hell on his behalf a second time, but no more able to resist than the first, she wondered if the wrenching pain twisting her insides was really fear... or love.  
  
* * * *  
  
Jack felt a twinge of alarm, deep in his gut, as he stood next to Will, watching the fort burn from the empty place where Elizabeth had stood. He willed his voice to remain even. “What did you say she was worried about?”  
  
“That you were still inside,” Will replied, suddenly turning to Jack with wide eyes. “You don't think...”  
  
“No, of course not,” Jack reassured him, all the while mentally calculating a path back into the fort. “Why would your darling Lizzie even think of... rushing inside a burning fortress in search of lil ol' me?”  
  
Will turned around, slowly, scanning the assembled crowd, the chaos. “She's been acting funny all night. All week, actually. Don't suppose you'd know anything about that.”  
  
“Nothing, I'm afraid,” Jack said. And he was afraid; the look in her eyes, the determination she had when she decided on something. He knew, with a sinking feeling, that she'd gone in after him. He clapped Will on the shoulder, thinking fast. “Women are always tied in knots before they... er... tie the knot, and it's probably nothing. Why don't you go over to the governor and see if she's with him? Or perhaps she's helping with the water. She can't have gone far. It's only been... what... a quarter of an hour?”  
  
“About that, yes,” Will said, beginning to breath harder. More anxiously. “She wouldn't have...”  
  
“No, no,” Jack said. “Don't panic. Check all around, first. Worse comes to worse, perhaps she went to watch at one of the gates for me. You look around the west side, I'll take the east. Keep a sharp eye. I'm sure we'll find her in no time.”  
  
* * * *  
  
  
Finding Jack would not be as easy as she first thought. Not that she'd thought much at all; her plan was at best _enter fort, find Jack, get out_ , which failed to take into consideration such complications as the extraordinary heat that met her like a wall.  
  
She made her way along the corridor, barely able to see in the smoke, beginning to cough even as she reached out a hand to the stone wall to make sure she was moving forward and not in circles. Surely it couldn't be this bad everywhere... no one could survive in here for long, not like this.  
  
The thought was sobering, and for the first time she considered the possibility that Jack was not just lost, injured, or missing, but might very well be already dead. And once again - however indirectly - it just might be her fault. Technically, he had only ended up in the jail because of _her_ , which made her doubly responsible... Bootstrap was right about her guidance being needed. She should have thrown propriety to the winds and led them out herself. What was a reputation, what was slander and disappointment compared with a man's life?   
  
Jack's life. One she'd come to regard much more preciously than ever. She should have donned her pirate garb and aided the escape... perhaps then she'd have gone down to the ship with him... and... Images flashed across her mind's eye. Standing with Jack at the rail on a summer's day, her hands calloused from handling line, her hair free, the sun upon their faces...  
  
Suddenly she found herself in the open air. She'd reached the courtyard, on the ground, and could see smoke billowing up to the night sky. She knew where she was, also - the exact center of the fort. She tried to think, through the haze of smoke and heat fogging her brain. Bootstrap had said he'd last seen Jack on the east steps. That was where she would start. She took a few deep, revitalizing breaths of the relatively clearer air at the courtyard before turning to head east as fast as her wobbly legs would carry her.  
  
She would search for him everywhere. She would trace a path from the east steps to the gate, and hopefully find him along the way... he had to be somehow delayed, just lost, he couldn't be dead, couldn't be lying amidst a pile of flaming timber... no pyre for Jack, it wouldn't be fitting. Jack wouldn't let himself die, except by the sea.  
  
No sooner had she finished her thought that the east steps came into sight twenty yards ahead. They were collapsed completely; nothing but firewood. She stared for a moment, and then tried to think where Jack would go if he were here. He would have been trying to get to the gate... but which way _was_ the gate? She stopped and leaned against the wall, trying to remember. There were two stone passages on either side of the staircase. One led to the armory, which was right near the east gate; the other led to the jail. The problem was, she couldn't remember which was which. When she came by official channels, she was always escorted through from a different direction. _Think, Elizabeth_. She coughed as she tried to remember a witty rhyme the soldiers had made up... _“Arm ye left, arm ye right, left your arm's in jail this night_ ”; or was it, right your arm's in jail? She cursed the fact that she'd never had much of a care for songs or poems that didn't involve pirates... she made a hurried choice and headed right.  
  
She stumbled down the passage, realizing that the smoke was thicker the farther one got from the courtyard... most of the fire seemed to be around the perimeter of the fort. It suddenly occurred to her that the armory might not be a safe spot to be near, after all; all the barrels of powder and shot... once the blaze reached it...   
  
She strode faster along the corridor, nearly choking on the foul air, noting that it was getting darker. Fewer flames, this way, or just more smoke... suddenly her feet fell from underneath her. A set of stairs, she realized as she tumbled down two or three steps and landed on the stone floor in a heap.  
  
It was dark. On the floor the air was clearer, and from somewhere there was a gust of salt-filled sea air... perhaps a window. She hoped for a moment that she was near the gate. The air was thick with smoke, and she coughed violently, trying to get enough breath to think. A sudden wave of exhaustion seemed to break over her, and she couldn't seem to get her legs to unfold beneath her. She reached out a hand for something to haul herself up, and to her surprise, felt metal bars.  
  
She flexed her fingers. Rusted iron, in a grid.  
  
She was in the jail.  
  
The world spun around her. She had gone the wrong way. Even worse, she hadn't found Jack. Despair clutched at her throat, and she wrapped her fingers around the bars in a last effort to pull herself up. It wasn't fair. She should have been able to find him.   
  
_I can't breathe_ , she thought, feeling her fingers slip from the cell grate. She pictured the iron, black, Jack behind it. Dark metal and dark hair and dark eyes. The dark night sky.  
  
The stone floor was warm against her cheek as she succumbed to the blackness.  
  
* * * *  
  
  
_Fool_ , Jack swore as he brutally snapped a thick strip of wood from a broken barrel, and he didn't know if he was cursing Elizabeth or himself. He weighed the wood in his hand, and then plunged the end into the flames that leapt from behind the barrel. He was just inside the entrance to the fort. Soldiers had long since given up their trips inside with water; the remaining stored water was precious, and the fire was too far gone. They would let it burn.  
  
Everyone was thought to have gotten out. Only Jack knew the truth. As he made his way rapidly along an inner wall with his improvised torch, his scarf tied over his mouth, his eyes scanning the field of flames and darkness, he wondered if he'd been foolish not to tell Will the truth. He'd cleverly covered their secret, but at what cost? Jack was certain that Will loved her; he'd have torn the fort apart searching for her. But it was too late now.  
  
Jack was alone. He'd slipped in the east gate, one that opened on a short path leading between rocks and curving around the side of the fort to town. Below the rocks was the ocean. He'd also sent Bootstrap down to the ship, with orders to sail by midnight, with or without Jack.   
  
As he made his way down the dark passage inside the fort, the heat growing oppressive, he looked to his left and right, beginning to cough on the smoke. He could make out the remains of a door on his right, one that had just burned through. Peering inside, he could just see the outline of tall columns of barrels and a number of wooden doors, to cabinets, swords and bayonets on racks and clustered in corners; the armory.  
  
Jack turned away, certain Elizabeth wouldn't be searching for him in there, when he had a thought. The door to the armory was burning; it was only a matter of time before some of the wood inside caught, or for some of the gunpowder to become overheated... Jack quickened his steps with alarm. If all those powder kegs were ignited, the entire east wing would likely be blown apart.  
  
He had to find her, and soon.  
  
After rounding a corner, he found himself in the courtyard; he breathed easier, his eyes searching the shadows for any trace of Elizabeth. There was none. Fear crept cold into his lungs and settled there, forcing him to take deeper breaths of the smoke-laden air. This wouldn't have happened, if only he'd...  
  
_If only he'd what?_ Questions assailed him as he turned around and around, slowly, looking everywhere he could see, trying to imagine what direction she might have taken. If only the silly girl hadn't done something so foolish... if only she hadn't fallen in love with him... _you know right well you had a fair hand in that, mate_ , a voice of his own responded. _And you weren't making protests when she offered herself to you, fair and square, ripe for the taking, and what was a pirate if not a man who took what was right in front of him?  
  
_ He had thought at the time that he would come to regret it, no matter his own feelings on the subject, and he was right; little comfort, now, having been right. He turned and entered the passage again, swallowing the inevitable guilt that threatened to well up from places he thought long buried. The problem with trying to do what was right was that he never had anything to show for it. It didn't seem to work for him, being a good man. Trying to be one. Whereas screwing up seemed to come quite naturally. It always had. He'd just learned to make a show of it.  
  
It was darker, now, as he headed down a passage to his right, wielding the torch like a weapon against the smoke and encroaching blackness. His fingers curled around the long, thin piece of wood, and it ought not to have felt round and hollow and notched, like a piece of bamboo, and yet it did, though it was perhaps only his mind's eye looking backward. The torch was the only solid thing that he had, that he could grasp firmly and know he was still alive, that would lead his way. He began to cough again, almost uncontrollably, and he steadied himself on the wall, finding his way along. He didn't know where he was going. His gut guided him now, instinct, his last resort when it came to navigation.   
  
At the last moment he held the torch in front of him and stopped on his toes, with his arms wide; the floor dropped away. He lowered the torch; no, it was only a small set of stone steps. He descended them and found himself at a dead end, though he couldn't see more than a few feet in front of him. He raised the torch again, squinting in the dark.  
  
A short corridor, to his left. A bench. It was familiar... the jail, he realized. After his elaborate escape plan, he'd managed to end up exactly where he had begun. He almost laughed at the irony, until he glanced at the floor.  
  
Lit in the dim light of his torch was Elizabeth's body, curled against the iron grate. Her tawny hair caught the light of the flame, nearly glowing as it lay spread in a tangle on the stone floor; her dress, once rosy-bright, smeared with soot and torn at the bodice and skirt, revealing the white lace of her chemise. Her mouth was slightly open as she lay with her cheek pressed to the floor, her hand limp beside her lips and nose. She wasn't moving.  
  
_So help me_ , Jack found himself thinking as he steadied himself on the wall, willing his knees not to give out. His eyes fluttered closed as he bit back stark terror, swallowed ashy despair. _So help me... so help me if I've set the fire that's killed her.  
  
_ He fell beside her on the floor, telling himself he was kneeling, and set down the torch to gather her in his arms. Her skin was warm and smooth where the bodice of her dress had torn, the sleeves had loosened to slip down her bare shoulders. He held a palm to her chest, unable to tell if she breathed because his hand shook; he cupped her face, instead, and said, “Elizabeth. Elizabeth.”  
  
She did not reply, and was motionless as he curled an elbow beneath her neck. “Elizabeth, love. Got to wake up, now. Please, darling. Please.”  
  
His throat was suddenly dry as splinters, and he began to cough, even as he begged her to wake. “...'Lizabeth. Come on. It's me, Jack. You've found me after all. Look, here I am. Open your eyes. Open your eyes.”  
  
There was a sound that could have been a tiny groan; or it could have been in his head, wishful thinking that he'd found her in time to make a difference. But it jarred him out of his shock; he suddenly remember the flames, the smoke, the powder in the armory.  
  
“We've got to go, love,” he said with raw and rasping voice, looping her arms around his neck, wrapping his around her waist. He hauled her limp body to her feet, but she sagged against him. “Elizabeth, you've got to wake up, got to walk.”  
  
Her head hung down, chin to her chest, her hair falling in front of her face. He smoothed it back. “All right, then, but I don't think this is going to work,” he muttered, bending to place his right shoulder at the level of her navel, grasping the torch in his left hand so he could see his way out. With great effort he straightened, his back seizing in pain, but still upright; he turned, and she was draped over his shoulder. “Lizzy, no more heavy English dinners for you. It's strict hardtack and grog from now on, I shall see to it.”  
  
He got two steps before one of his knees buckled and his back wrenched, and both of them ended up back on the stone floor with a painful jolt, his arm across her chest and his face buried in her shoulder. “Dammit to hell,” he murmured, trying to assess which, if any, of his knees would actually work.   
  
“ _Jack_?” came the faintest of whispers. He thought he'd imagined it, at first, but then his eyes shot open wide and he lifted himself on his palms.  
  
Relief washed through him as he saw her eyelids flutter. “Yes. Hello. Stay with me. Are you awake, now? All right?” He sat up and then cupped a hand beneath her head, lifting it up. “'Lizabeth!”  
  
“Jack?”  
  
“Yes, good girl. Take a breath. Try to sit up, now.”  
  
She took a breath and coughed, violently, doubled over in his arms. “Jack...” she whispered when she could speak. “Are... are we... dead?”  
  
“Not yet, darling,” he said, and suddenly found he had the strength to get to his feet. He grasped her arm and pulled her, forcibly, to her feet. She fell against him with another cough, leaning her cheek on the wool of his jacket.  
  
“If we're... dead,” she said in a faraway voice, “will we.... be together?”  
  
“Not in the way I'd prefer,” he replied, taking hold of her shoulders and squeezing firmly. “Listen, we've got to get out of here, immediately. Do you hear? Now. You've got to walk. _Move_.”  
  
“I can't,” she said, gasping for air, leaning upon his extended arm.  
  
“You can, and you will. Step to. March,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist for support as he guided her up the steps.  
  
They bent low as they began to make their way along the corridor. She leaned heavily upon him, but she did walk; they were slowly but surely on their way out. Jack began to think they might just make it out alive.  
  
“Can't breathe,” she told him as they passed the turn that would have taken them to the courtyard.  
  
“Just a little further,” he said patiently, tightening his grip on her waist.   
  
It was not much help. In another few steps, her legs gave out and she stumbled forward, he with her, and he only saved them from toppling to the floor by a great exertion of arm strength. She landed on her knees.  
  
“No no,” he told her. “Up.”  
  
“Stop giving me _orders_ ,” she said, and broke into a fresh round of coughing.  
  
He smiled. “Not a chance. You'll follow my orders, or it'll be the last thing you ever do. Or don't do,” he amended, as he hauled her to her feet again.  
  
She looked at him in the uncertain light of the flames pouring from a room just ahead. “You're wearing the uniform,” she said as a distant, factual observation.  
  
“All the more reason to do what I say,” he replied, and gave a gentle push. “Move, now.”  
  
Elizabeth was not thinking straight, he noted, remembering she'd said nothing terribly coherent since he'd woken her. Little too much smoke. He knew how that could be.  
  
The room they were passing, he was alarmed to see, was the armory. Any moment, the flames would reach the powder kegs along the rear wall. “Elizabeth, move faster,” he urged, nearly dragging her along.  
  
They had just passed the armory door when she fell again, coughing violently, and this time he couldn't catch her. She landed on all fours, and he immediately crouched beside her, saying, “Get up.”  
  
“I can't,” she answered. “Can't get my breath.”  
  
“It's better outside, I promise,” he said, trying to get her up. She was heavy in his grip.  
  
“No, Jack, I really can't...” and she broke off in coughing and gasping, falling to the floor again. The smoke was thick, and even Jack coughed, now. He glanced back at the door, and heard the crunch of collapsing wood. The cabinets were catching... any moment now...  
  
“Elizabeth...listen to me. The powder's going to catch. We're going to be blown to kingdom come.”  
  
“I can't,” was her answer, and she turned to lean against the wall. “Can't breathe. Need a moment to...”  
  
“There's no time, love,” he said, trying to keep the terror out of his voice. “No time to rest. Got to go, now.”  
  
Jack heard a popping noise from within the armory, and he knew it was wood cracking, the barrels bursting loose in the flames. If they didn't get out, they would both perish in the explosion...   
  
With a sudden determination, he leaned forward and curled an arm under her legs, another around her back. He bent his knees and lifted with all his might, and her head fell against his shoulder as he managed to stand.  
  
He staggered down the passageway as quickly as he dared, lurching from one side to the other under Elizabeth's weight. Pure strength of will fueled him, and he charged forward, telling himself if it was the last deed he ever did, he ought to at least make it a good one.  
  
One false step and he thought his knee would collapse again; in that moment he fervently wished he could trade with a younger version of himself, his age-gotten wisdom for his youthful knees, but somehow he pressed on. Ahead he saw the stone steps that led down to the east gate; Elizabeth groaned in his arms, and he tightened his grip as he forced himself to keep going.  
  
A low explosion sounded behind them. The first of the powder kegs. The rest would follow...  
  
He turned himself sideways to fit down the passageway with her; another _boom_ in the distance. He wondered if they'd both survive the explosion, or if they'd be cast onto the rocks, unconscious, to drown in the sea... He saw the gate only a little ways ahead, just a short expanse of ground till the outer wall of the fort.  
  
He couldn't run any more. Still he carried her, his lungs straining for air, one hand cupped above her knees to curl around her thighs, the satin smoothness of her ruined gown bunched and crumpled in his hand; the other curled around her chest, his fingertips brushing the side of her breast as he clutched Elizabeth tighter, thinking somewhere deep inside that if the whole place were blown apart he wouldn't want to let go of her, alive or not. He tried to force his legs to move faster, but every muscle screamed from the exertion; he kept going, his eyes on the bared expanse of her upper chest, delighting in a sort of desperate irony in her nude shoulders exposed by the ripped sleeves of the gown, as her wrists tightened around the back of his neck. She was terribly beautiful, even when she was in the midst of getting him killed.  
  
They had just made it outside the gate, just set foot on the path by the rocks, when the explosion hit full force.  
  
Thunder radiated from behind them, heat and fire erupting above their heads. Jack threw himself and Elizabeth behind a boulder, shielding her body with his as he lowered both their heads to their chests, stone flying and fire shooting from everywhere behind them. A great cloud of pieces of stone rained down upon them, and he winced as pieces struck them, careful to keep her head tucked beneath his.  
  
After a long, echoing moment, it was quiet again. He turned to see most of the east wing gone; fire leapt in its wake, but they were alive. He turned to Elizabeth, who was coughing again, but this time on dusty air; once the dust settled, they could breathe again. She collapsed against him, taking deep, gasping breaths. He wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on top of her head, feeling the warmth of her hair tangling in his beard. They were alive.  
  
In the distance he heard the shouts of men, and he knew his relief was to be short-lived. The officers and soldiers would soon come to investigate the damage. If he was ever going to leave, climb down the rocks and get to the ship, it was going to have to be now. He would not be able to bask in the afterglow of what might perhaps qualify as a grand act of heroics; like the uniform, which seemed to ride up oddly and pinched under his arms, heroism just didn't fit him. He could squeeze himself into it, but not for long.  
  
“Elizabeth, love, look at me,” he said softly, and she did, lifting her head. He helped her off the ground and eased her up so she was leaning on the waist-high boulder. She looked at him, from head to foot, seeming less far away than before, as she breathed clear air.  
  
At that moment, he could have berated her, told her that she was a complete and utter fool to even think of entering that building in search of him; he could have told her he was immensely relieved that she was all right; or he could have told her he loved her, in whatever way he could love a woman, all the ways. Instead, he only said, “What do you think?” in a wry tone, noting the surprise in her expression. “Do you like me in uniform?”  
  
Her eyes flew up to meet his, and for the first time that evening he saw the trace of a sly smile, as she sighed something like a single laugh. “I think I'd like you better out of it,” she said, and he didn't ask whether she meant naked or dressed as a pirate - or as a naked pirate, come to think of it - and it didn't matter. It was their way of saying _Thank you,_ and _You're welcome_.  
  
There was another man's shout, still far off, but getting closer. They were completely alone, or at least they seemed to be, but they wouldn't be for long. He didn't know if she really realized this was it; the end. “Elizabeth... I've got to go.”  
  
She nodded, somberly, quickly, closing her eyes. “I know.”  
  
“Chin up, darling... you've got a lovely town, here - a good man, too. Easy on the eyes. Strong back.” He couldn't fail to notice she still wasn't looking at him, and she even seemed to cringe a bit at his reminders of Will. Guilt, he supposed. He charged blindly on, as he often did when he didn't know what to say; he kept talking, at all costs. “Plenty of good babe-sowing days ahead of him. Has even got a trade, and a decent one, unlike your last fiancé, whose chosen occupation involved a minimum of thinking and an excess of poking people in the back with a bayonet.” She still didn't respond, and he made a split-second decision to attempt an optimism that would seem empty to him, but might be the shred of hope she needed. False or otherwise. “Besides,” he said slowly, his voice a bit deeper. “Who knows? Perhaps we'll meet again. On some far shore.”  
  
Her eyes snapped up, with a sudden, fierce light in them. She stood, pushing away from the rock with newly strong hands. “Jack.”  
  
He narrowed his eyes, wondering what it was she'd gotten it in her head to do, now. She stepped closer with purpose. “Aye?” he said, looking warily at her determined expression.  
  
“It doesn't have to be goodbye.”  
  
“Isn't that what I just said?”  
  
She shook her head, energetically, smiling, as though she'd just had a great secret of the world revealed to her. “No, Jack... what if... what if I went with you?”  
  
He frowned, covering real concern with a witty remark. “Well, that would be awfully silly. You'd miss your own wedding.”  
  
She regarded him frankly, ignoring the joke, however true. “I'm completely serious. I... I'm going with you.”  
  
“That's just the smoke talking,” he murmured, trying to make light of it. His heart began to pound as he leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead. “Goodbye, Elizabeth.” He looked at her for a moment more, gave her a smile he didn't feel, and then turned to go. As if it were that easy. He had to pretend, for both their sakes, that it was. He took a step down the dirt path, towards the rocks that he could climb down to reach the ship.  
  
“That was _not_ the 'smoke talking'!” he heard her say. Over his shoulder, he saw that she stumbled after him, sluggish from her lack of breath and heavy, torn clothing. “Jack! Do you hear me?”  
  
He stopped, his back to her, then turned, regarding her almost sadly. “Elizabeth... I'm taking his father again. Do you really think he'll let me take you, too?”  
  
She paused, but then continued on her path toward him. It was a paltry argument, and he knew it. Will had never stopped him from doing anything he wanted, before, and so sooner or later she would figure out that he didn't _want_ her to run off with him. Not now. Not like this. Not on an impulse she would likely come to regret, however strongly she might feel about it now...  
  
She reached him in several more steps. “Jack, I know it sounds... like madness, I don't know... but I'll really go with you. Tonight. Wherever you're going. I want to go. A pirate's life I can lead... I don't know if I can lead this one.” With a wave of her hand she indicated the dress, the fort, Port Royal as a whole.  
  
He regarded her for a moment more, then slipped his hands around her waist, pulled her to him and kissed her, hard, completely and deeply. When he pulled away, her eyes were heavy-lidded and slow to open, her lips parted to draw in deep, shuddering breaths. Oh, it wasn't the smoke talking; it was fire. She was too new to passion, didn't understand its ebb, didn't know that it consumed everything around it and could destroy, too. He shouldn't have taken her, shouldn't have made promises with his body that he never really intended to keep. It would fade, what she felt now. It would scorch her and then heal, and everything would go on as before.  
  
It was different for him. He, at least, knew himself for a fool to be completely enamored of someone he couldn't have. And as he examined her face, lit warmly by the flames that leapt from the fort behind them, he reconsidered their exchange that morning; he now knew he feared something more than a cage, and it was losing himself utterly. He saw himself lost forever in those eyes, the color of sun-warmed wood, the face that showed him every nuance of every emotion, where he read annoyance and pleasure and confusion and passion, too. He saw himself waiting for every breath to enter and exit those lips, for as long as he might happen to live. And as he'd learned before, once a man lost himself, not even freedom mattered much anymore.  
  
“Ta, darling,” he said while he could still speak, and detached her arms from around his neck, dropping them to her sides. He whirled and walked away as fast as he could, knowing that any delay might cause him not to go at all.   
  
“Jack!” he heard her call after him, sounding baffled, as if she were saying, _You can't really mean to ignore my wishes_. There was the girl who was terribly accustomed to getting her own way, to manipulating everyone to her own advantage. Unfortunately, it wouldn't serve her, here. He swung his legs over the edge of the outcropping and dropped down a yard onto a rock below. “Jack, come back here this _instant_!” More royally displeased now, those commands, higher-pitched. Then realization dawned, as her voice told him she'd realized he was actually going. “ _Jack!_ ” He climbed onto another rock, wishing he couldn't hear the anguish in her voice, wishing he could explain it to her in a way she'd understand. He paused, knowing he was out of sight, nearly ready to turn back, to cede and throw everything away, just to not hurt her beyond repair. She would likely never forgive him for leaving this way. He believed he was doing right; at least, he _thought_ he did, and the way his gut seemed to be twisting told him it was both the most right and the most wrong thing he could have done. That was uncomfortable and disturbing but not really a surprise, as executing a wrong and a right simultaneously seemed to be his way of life.  
  
“ _Jack!_ ” he heard her scream, and it was a roar of frustration. Yet she did not scramble over the outcropping's edge to beg him to change his mind; in her tantrum she did not wail and beat the ground nor risk bodily injury attempting to pursue him in her cumbersome clothing. After a long moment, the calls of his name had stopped and there was silence; she thought him gone. He winced as he lifted his suddenly-heavy body from the rock, knowing the sight of black sails would not be quite the comfort he needed. The moon would hang low over the sea, and as the darkness wrapped around him and the crew and the _Pearl_ , he knew he would still face the darkness alone.  
  
  
  
Elizabeth saw him disappear, climbing over the cliff's edge onto the rocks. He had to have heard her calling, had to have heard and ignored her. Humiliation burned in her cheeks; was she really so naive as to think that he was more than he was? To think that... she had _changed_ him somehow, even though he'd told her, quite clearly, that sharing his bed changed nothing. She'd believed it, known it, but still, she'd seen something different. Something more. The haunted look in his eyes, the way he said her name, a prayer against her lips, an invocation, a promise.   
  
She must have imagined it; created it for her own sake. He would just leave her behind, and sail off into the night, off to the next grand adventure. She supposed she'd been just that, an adventure, and now that it was done, there was no reason for him to stay or wish her to come along. Oh, she was ten times a fool to have faith in the empty promises of a pirate and betray the love of a good man...  
  
She stumbled to the ground right where she was - though she told herself she was only sitting - hissing, “Bastard!” before she began to weep, her tears a release of the entire night's worth of emotion, rather than his departure... after all, he always seemed to come back... didn't he? Wouldn't he? She'd let him have it if he did, she'd make him sorrier than anyone had ever been... before she threw herself into his arms and let him lead her where he would.  
  
After a few minutes she drew a deep breath and wiped her eyes with her palms, certain she was smearing her face with soot. She looked up from her seat on the ground to see a familiar pair of shoes in front of her. “Jack?” she had said before she thought.  
  
Her eyes traveled upward to find Will staring down at her, his eyes swimming with emotion, his mouth set in a hard line. He extended a hand to her, which she took in order to rise to her feet, surprised to find herself trembling. “How... how long... have you been here?” she managed to say.  
  
“Long enough,” he said, and it was a pained, bitter statement that told her he'd seen them exit the fort, had seen everything that had happened since.  
  
“Oh,” she said, suddenly conscious of the torn and filthy state of her dress, her mussed hair, her kiss-swollen lips. “Will, I...”  
  
“Don't bother,” he said sharply. “You must really think I'm a fool if you expect me to believe what you say, now.”  
  
There was a long pause, a stretching, straining pause, and the sounds of boards snapping and flames licking greedily at wood and metal crackled behind them. She looked sadly, carefully at the man she did, in fact, love, before saying, “What you saw was _goodbye_. If it matters to you at all.”  
  
Will considered this a moment, his eyes searching her face before they turned away to the night air, to the fire, and then out to the sea, where the shadowy outline of a ship could be seen slipping across the harbor. “With Jack, it's never really goodbye,” he said before turning back to her, and the hurt in his eyes - eyes so kind and warm, before, the soft eyes she loved - wrenched her gut, and she moved toward him, but he jerked away and stepped back. “So no,” he said with a terrible finality. “No, it doesn't matter.”  
  
He glanced over her, as if to reassure himself that she was whole. “Goodbye, Elizabeth,” he said on a pained whisper before he turned and marched up the path that led to the road.   
  
She watched him go. She stared, understanding but not wanting to, not able to believe, at first, that she was really watching Will Turner walk away from her for good.   
  
She glanced up at the inferno that had been a fortress, saw with a heavy heart the ravage and ruin. By the time the flames swam before her eyes, blurring the night into Hell and stone into water, Will was gone. She was left to face the flaming wreckage of her carefully wrought life, alone.  
  
  
  



End file.
